341 



7 



AN 



INQUIRY 

INTO THE 

PAST AND PRESENT RELATIONS 

Of 

FRANCE 

AND THE 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




The illustrious example just quoted should be here imitated by those whose 
" proper stations in our political world have been usurped by the most inca- 
" pable and contemptible men that ever presumed to be ambitious; by 
f men, who are no less devoid of the accomplishments of liberal and useful 
*' science, than of all the distinguishing qualifications of real statesmen — who 
** are not the guides, but the instruments, of the people— who are at once th« 
" ihame and the scourge of their country." 

Prospectus of the Amerkan Reviets, 

. 



LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR J. HAT CHARD, 

BOOKSELLER TO HER MAJESTY, 

NO. 190, OPPOSITE ALBANY, PICCADILLY. 



:-34-! 



fjBtctl by 5. Gpimill, Little Queen Street, Leaden, 



PREFACE. 



The following pages present a picture of the American go- 
vernment in its relations with France, which must, of neces- 
sity, embrace many features ©f its characteristic policy to- 
wards Great Britain. The picture is drawn by a native 
artist of considerable ability, who, whilst he gives, as may 
be seen in all his writings, ample credit to the genius and 
high calling of bis countrymen, has nevertheless availed him- 
self of the means which he possesses to portray in their true 
colours the genius and disposition of the ruling party, and 
of those more immediately engaged in the functions of go- 
vernment. In saying this, it is almost superfluous to intro- 
duce to our Readers the name of Mr. Walsh, who has al- 
ready distinguished himself in the field of literature and po- 
litics, and who is the Editor of a new work called the Ame- 
rican Review, which bids fair, at no very distant period, to 
place his country on a level with our own in the merit 
of^his sort of production. It will, in fact, be compara* 
tively of greater utility than any similar work in Europe, be- 
cause it will not only convey to us the opinions, more valu- 
able than is generally supposed, of our Trans-atlantic bre- 
thren, upon the productions of the British press, but will 
bring us acquainted with those of their own ; and this inter- 
course of letters will, in some sort, be a substitute for that more 
enlarged commercial intercourse which, until interrupted by 



PREFACE* 



the total prevalence of French influence at Washington, con- 
tributed so much to the mutual prosperity of both countries. 

The following article is extracted from the first volume of the 
American Review, which was published at Philadelphia on 
the first day of the present year, and is to be continued quar- 
terly * We may safely recommend the whole volume to the 
perusal of the public, especially the very interesting Letters 
npon England and France, which, together with this tract, we , 
presume to come from the pen of Mr. Walsh himself, and 
to be addressed to his friend and co-operator in the cause of 
good taste and good principles — Robert Goodloe Harper 
but this extract has been made and published in a separate 
form, because it is conceived to be pre-eminently important, 
at the present juncture of affairs, that the conduct of the 
United States towards France, by which that of Great Bri- 
tain towards them must in a great decree be regulated, 
should be thoroughly understood by the politicians of our 
country, as it unquestionably is by the writer of the follow* 
Sng pages. That his statement of the case is correct, can be 
affirmatively decided by every person who will give himself 
the trouble of referring to the official documents on which 
it is founded. That his conclusions, drawn from these pre- 
mises, are incontrovertible, is no less manifest by the sen- 
timents expressed by the American executive itself, in nu- 
merous passages which he quotes, and by the following note 
which is subjoined, in another part of the Review, to an 
appendix of the State Papers, laid before Congress by the 
President, at the opening of the present session. This note 
appears to us to be so conclusive, that we cannot better con- 
tribute to the elucidation of the subject, than by transferring 
it into our present sheet. 

" The president of the United States stands pledged not 
to proceed in giving effect to the act of the first of May, in 
favour of France, * in case the late seizure of the property 
•* of the citizens of this country has been followed by an ab* 



PREFACE. 



€ solute confiscation, and restoration be finally refused.'-— 
' The only ground,* says our secretary of state, in his letter 
to general Armstrong on this subject, « short of a prelimi- 
( nary restoration of the property, on which the contemplated 

* arrangement can be made, will be an understanding that 

* the confiscation is reversible, and that it will become im- 
c mediately the subject of discussion, with a reasonable pro- 
6 sped of justice to our injured citizens/ There has been 
no distinct, formal understanding with the French govern- 
ment, that the confiscation is reversible, and the language 
used by the president in his message, gives us plainly to in- 
fer, that there is as yet no 6 reasonable prospect of justice 
c to our injured citizens.' General Armstrong quitted France 
without having left this business, even in a train of adjust- 
ment, and received only a verbal assurance, as he tells us, 
that the fate of the property seized in France, would depend 
upon that of the French vessels seized here, under our Non- 
intercourse Law. A verbal assurance, particularly from the 
French government, will not, we suppose, be construed, even 
by the most sanguine of our politicians, into e a reasonable 
f prospect of redress to our injured citizens.' The only 
ground of reliance, or of reasoning in this case, is to be 
found in the written declaration in the above letter of the 
duke of Cadore, that, c As to the, merchandise confiscated, it 

* having been confiscated as a measure of reprisal, the prin~ 
€ ciples of reprisal must be the law in that affair.' 

" The footing upon which the business is here placed, 
merits a short examination. The French government has 
not informed us officially, how it construes * this law of re- 
' prisal * Which is to govern in the affair ; and some sinister 
omens may be drawn by our * injured citizens' with regard 
to the interpretation which will be given to this law, when 
they advert to the meaning of the term confiscated, employed 
in the declaration of the French minister, and to the general 
character of the French government. Let us apply, ho-w- 

i 



yi 



PREFACE. 



ever, to this case, the principles of the law of reprisal, as 
they were universally admitted, and acted upon by the world, 
before the French revolution, and see in what relation France 
and the United States will then be placed. 

<e No doctrine appertaining to the law of nations, was 
better settled, than that of reprisals. The great jurists of 
Europe call a state of reprisals, an imperfect war, and lay 
down the most positive, as well as the most indisputable 
rules, on this subject. If our readers wish to have a full ex- 
position of these rules, from the authorities which formerly 
decided such questions, we refer them to Grotius, lib. 3. c. 2. 
— to PufFendorf, lib. 5. c. 13. — to Burlamaqui, liv. 4. ch. 3. 
— to the discussions between Sir William Temple and the 
pensionary De Witt — and to Vattel, b. 2. c. 17. All the 
writers on national law concur in the following maxims, and 
Vattel is particularly full and explicit ; — that reprisals can be 
justifiably resorted to by a nation, only when she has expe- 
rienced sl flagrant injustice from another; — only after redress 
has been solemnly demanded, and peremptorily refused, or 
unreasonably delayed ; — that property seized under the law of 
reprisals, is to be restored, when satisfaction is made by the 
offending nation ; and can be subjected to final confiscation, 
in no case hut where redress has leen refused) and is become 
hopeless. 

<( Under these maxims, it is impossible to consider the 
seizure made by the French government, as an act of reprisal; 
nor is it possible, without sacrificing our national honour, to 
treat with France on that ground. France sustained no in- 
jury from us : she demanded no redress ; the seizure which 
she made was nothing less than an act of rapine, an unpro- 
voked, audacious robbery. Our administration call it, in 
theif correspondence with general Armstrong, 6 an enormous 
f outrage — c a signal aggression on the principles of justice 
c and good faith ;' — < a proceeding of violence, for which re- 
* paration must be made, as a preliminary to a general ac« 



PREFACE. 



vii 



' commodation of the differences between the two countries, 
f and which must be redressed if it le not the purpose of the 
€ Trench government to remove every idea of friendly adjust- 
* ment with the United States. 9 

" Let us now suppose that France is willing to act, in this 
instance, upon the true principles of the law of reprisals, 
and to restore the property which she has seized, provided 
we consent to make reparation for the supposed injury, which 
alone could entitle her to call her proceeding an act of re- 
prisals. Now we assert, that the administration of this coun- 
try cannot consent to treat with France on this ground ; — 
nor make the reparation which she may demand, without 
prostituting the national dignity and honour. They cannot 
proceed to negotiate with France on the principles of reprisals, 
without admitting the legality of the French seizures ; with- 
out admitting, by necessary implication, that France had 
been injured by us, and is entitled to redress; without falsify- 
ing thus their own declarations, and conceding the point, that 
they were not authorized to confiscate French property under 
our Non-intercourse Law; — that is to say, that they were 
not authorized to exercise a right of territorial sovereignty 
which they have expressly allowed to France, in the case of 
the Berlin decree. Nothing, we think, can be clearer than 
this position ; — that any act of restitution, whether real or 
imaginary, made by us to France, on the principles of re- 
prisals, presupposes, necessarily, that 1 ranee is the party 
wronged, and the United States the offending nation. To do 
any act, under all the circumstances of the case, and after 
the expression of feeling in which our government has 
indulged on this subject ; to do, we say, any act from 
which such an inference could, by any possibility, be drawn, 
is to descend from the level of equality and independence in 
our relations with France, and to sacrifice our dignity as an 
equivalent for the restoration of property, for the detention 
of which there is not the least colour of justice or right. 

a 2 



■vVli PREFACE. 

" This is, in fact, the very attitude of humiliation and 
disgrace in which France may wish to place us. She knows 
well that she has very little or no property to reclaim from 
us. It is not then to obtain a restitution of any actual losses 
sustained by the operation of our Non-intercourse Law, that 
she will condescend to treat with us upon the principles of re- 
prisal. She calls, or may call, for the mere formality of a 
restitution, with no other view but to obtain reparation for 
her injured honour* She means to extort from us, in order 
to glut her own pride and to consummate our debasement, 
an implied admission that our Non intercourse Law was an 
aggression on her honour, and her measure of sequestration 
but a fair and justifiable retaliation. We have nothing to 
restore to her, and must therefore be sensible, that she can 
have no other meaning in demanding from us the formality 
of a restitution. 

" Notwithstanding these obvious considerations, our secre- 
tary of state instructed general Armstrong to make an agree- 
ment to thjs effect, if it should be demanded, — in a conven- 
tional form to. he sanctioned by the senate of the United States, 
stating, at the same time, that there was no analogy between 
our Non-intercourse Law and the decree of Kambouillet ! 
? Light lie the ashes on American prHe V 99 

We must, hovvever, in fairnes's add our opinion, that this 
strength of logic, however powerful! v it might operate upon 
unbiassed minds, will be made to yield to the apparently 
infatuated policy whieh Messrs. Jefferson and Madison are 
unremittingly pursuing in, their relations with foreign powers. 
The mention of these gentlemen's names makes it necessary to 
inform those of our readers who may be ignorant of the 
circumstance, that, although removed from the head of 
affairs, Mr. Jefferson's is still the invisible hand that guides 
the political machine. His principles are as completely pre- 
dominant as during the eight years of his presidency ; and 
although there be wanting in the execuiion of them some- 



PREFACE, 



ix 



what of the energy and decision which distinguish him from 
his successor, yet Mr. Madison is now, as he then was, cer- 
tainly a very willing, and, in many instances, not an 
ttnwortby propounder of his system. We have, therefore, 
nothing to expect on the score of moderation or forbearance 
from the American government. All their wishes, pre- 
possessions, and exertions, are embarked on the side of our 
enemy. Supposing the members of that government to be 
sincere and honest statesmen, they must also believe their 
interests to lie in the same direction. They, like some few 
of our own politicians, believe, or affect to believe, that the 
sun of Britain is setting ; that we are doomed ultimately to 
succumb in the conflict which we yet maintain with the 
despot who has subdued the continent. It remains, there- 
fore, with ourselves to confim'pr to overthrow this belief. By 
our own acts must it be determined whether (S our resources 
" be yet unimpaired," and whether, as expressed by the 
poet, 

" Our hearts are strengthen'd and our glories rise." — 

An act is now in its passage through Congress, which, if 
it become a law, without any concomitant measure in 
regard to France of a similar import, of which no indication 
has yet arisen, will be a full, unequivocal, and avowed 
adoption, by the United States, of Bonaparte's continental 
system. It purports, that we may buy as much American 
produce as our market can dispose of, but that not a bale of 
British goods, manufactured or otherwise, shall be imported 
into the United States. This must be, and is, meant to have 
the full co-operative effect of the French burning decrees. 
What Mr. Canning only hinted at in his correspondence 
with Mr. Pinkney is now publicly avowed and acted upon. 
America has actually embarked in the only kind of warfare 
against us which her means will allow of. Fortunately we 
have means of converting this species of hostility into the 



FREFACE. 



most ruinous engine of counter-action that imbecility 
ever brought upon the devoted head of its victim ; and at 
the same time of multiplying our own native resources. 
From the competition of the produce of the United States 
with that of our own colonies, most of the articles of which 
it consists are so accumulated in our markets, as scarce to 
find a sale upon any terms that leave a fair profit to the 
importer. It is but justice to those of our fellow-subjects 
who have employed their industry and their capital m ex- 
ploring new, and, for a time, doubtful sources for their own 
and their country's prosperity, that they, now the common 
utility of their discoveries is ascertained, should have the full 
benefit of them. It would be the only punishment befitting 
the dignity of a great empire to inflict upon the arrogance of 
a democratic faction, to shut them up in the mazes of their 
own labyrinth ; to accept their challenge, and close upon their 
terms of Non-intercourse. It would be only a fit recom- 
pense to the intelligent and enterprising spirit of our own 
fellow-subjects to exclude from our home and West India 
markets the timber and the fish of the United States, the 
continued admission of which has been for some time a 
subject of just complaint in the mercantile world. We will 
not think so meanly of our country, of her statesmen, or of 
any class of her merchants or manufacturers, as to believe, 
that, for the comparatively small vent which now takes place 
of our manufactures in the United States, they would consent 
to surrender the dignity and the political importance of the 
empire to a band of demagogues, acting upon the principles, 
and in the manner, described by Mr. Walsh. 

It remains for us onlv to remind our readers, that it is an 
American,, not an English politician, whose opinions they 
are about to peruse. This should be continually borne in 
remembrance, to obviate the idea of any undue bias, either 
against the Gallic confederacy at Washington, or in favour of 
our own national sentiments. It is at the same time no 



PREFACE* 



XI 



*e than justice to a very numerous and very respectable 
part of the American community, to declare our firm con- 
viction, that in the following passage, with which we shall 
conclude this short prefatory address, our author has cor- 
rectly stated the sentiments of those amongst his country- 
men who are most favourable to the cause of public and 
private virtue, of national and individual liberty,: 

u We should lose all hope for the preservation of any of 
cc the true honours, or comforts, or embellishments of 
<( existence, if we did not discern in the midst of an ocean 
:i of confusion and of horrors, one solid rock braving the 
fe fury of the tempest, and invulnerable to the assaults of the 
" billows. To this rock we look in part for our own safety, 
ec and therefore we would not, if we were left to our own 
" option to decide, ourselves consent that one particle should 
" be loosened from its supposed foundation, lest the whole 
<( concrete mass might give way, 5 * 

March g, i8ii. 



AN 



INQUIRY, 



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TtlpCtVV^J. T/ sVi T&?TG 3 'A7Tir'<». TcCVTY}V (pUXXTTZTl' TtXUTWS O.VT S^ECT^E* 

lay javrnv (rwfyrs, y$ev ^=*vov j^ waS'MTE. T/' xvfyriiTt ; E<p*jv" EXsuS'sp/otv'J 
Etr' ^ opaTE ^>/A»7Ttov aAAorp/wta'rac tocutyi xa/ raj -jsrpoo'Jiyopia.g t^ovroc ; 
/SownAsy? yaa x*i ry'payvoj flbraj, £%9"p<>S sAsuSspVa, jca/ vo/xoi? i'vowr/off. 
Ou (f)i'Aoif ss-S'i, E^yjv otto) j jw.ii, ttoXiuai ^t5vtej cwraAA&yriyaJ, ^EO-TTemy 

EUp'/5T£. 

" There is one common bulwark with which men of prudence are naturally 
" provided ; which is the guard and security of all people, particularly of free 
" states against the assaults of tyrants, and that is distrust. Of this be mindful; 
" to this adhere, and you will be protected from disaster. Is it liberty that you 
" seek ? And do you not perceive that nothing can be more hostile to this than 
" the very title? of the man? Every despot is an enemy to liberty and a contemner 

. " of laws. Will ye not then be careful, lest, while ye seek to be freed from war, 
" ye find yourselves his slaves ?" Demost. against Philif'. 

It is correctly asserted in some of our newspapers^ that a 
serious alarm has been kindled in the breasts of many of our 
most enlightened men by the late extraordinary and unex- 
pected news from France. The letter of the fifth of August 
from the French minister to general Armstrong is fitted to 
strike dismay into every intelligent and patriotic American 
who reflects upon the history of our past relations with 
France and England, — and upon the gross delusions which 
prevail among us with respect to the character and views of 
these two powers. This rapid transition on the part of the 
French emperor from a language of contempt and menace to 
one of admiration and friendship, wears a most portentous, 

A 



Past and present Relations of 



aspect,— and is to be viewed as the most dangerous of all 
the modes of attack, — as the most skilful of all the evolutions 
which he could have devised in the real and implacable war 
which he wages against this country. There lurks in the 
honey which he now presents to our lips a most deadly ve- 
nom, — and although we may not be able to comprehend all 
the motives and the entire scope of his present policy, we 
may be assured that his new decree is intended to produce a 
train of consequences which may involve our destruction. 
We consider it as the first duty, — as the immediate, — the 
personal, — the highest interest of every man among us, 
whose faculties qualify him for the purpose, to toll the alarm- 
bell without delay, and to summon the American public to 
an attentive consideration of the steps which they are now 
invited to take by the French government. 

A person acquainted only with the series of outrages 
which Bonaparte has committed upon us during the last 
three years, — with the tenor of his previous language, — and 
with his characteristic habits and passions, would be dis- 
posed to ridicule all apprehensions such as those which we 
now profess to entertain, on the ground, that a declaration of 
love from him to this nation, must necessarily appear to 
every description of politicians, in the light either ©f a plea- 
sant burlesque, or of an insulting mockery. But to one who 
knows all the circumstances of our condition, and the variety 
of interests and prej udices w hich conspire among us to second 
the designs of Bonaparte, no fears will seem extravagant, 
and no admonitions superfluous. We can discover, already, 
melancholy symptoms of the success which may attend this 
new decree, although it is, without doubt, a tissue of the 
most impudent falsehoods and the most contumelious irony 
that any state- paper ever embraced, or that any enemy, 
however insolent or insidious, ever dictated. 

At its first appearance the predominant party was exhila- 
rated beyond measure, and our merchants were generally 
credulous enough to suppose that the golden era of an un- 
shackled and universal trade was about to be revived. A little 
reflection since has damped the expectations of both. The 
merchants, prone as they must be to credit the possibility of 
any state of things conformable to their seeming interests 
and their eager wishes, lose confidence as they reflect upon 
the contradictions which it is necessary to reconcile, before 
any reliance can be placed upon the declarations, or any- 
positive opinion be formed concerning the intentions, of 
Bonaparte. The well-meaning members of our majority, 



France and the United States, 



3 



whose infatuation on the subject of France extends only to a 
most extravagant admiration, as well as panic-fear of her 
power, were perplexed by the duplicity of the language, and 
somewhat disgusted with the grossness of the flattery, which 
are but too apparent, even to their own eyes, in this diplomatic 
lillet-doux. But the active and designing spirits, — those who, 
either from treachery or blindness, are so industriously labour- 
ing to convert our mild republic into a furious democracy, 
and our free country into a province of France, exulted in the 
opportunity which this new vicissitude seemed to afford 
them, of ripening the popular discontents against England, 
and of confirming their own dominion. They saw at once 
the utility of the crisis for their elections, and the immense 
advantage to be obtained over their antagonists by affecting to 
credit the benevolent professions of Bonaparte. The same 
belief is to be 'imposed upon the multitude j and they are 
then, before the sequel is known, to be represented as the 
saviours of the country, in having thus, as it were, miracu- 
lously charmed down his antipathies. 

The chief source of elation for them, and the most im- 
portant consideration for the public, is the tendency of the 
new decree to widen the breach between this country an.d 
Great Britain. It is notorious that there is not wanting here a 
multitude even of intelligent men so strangely infatuated as to 
desire a war with England, and to hail, almost with trans- 
port, every incident calculated to promote that object. To 
many, the destruction of the land of our forefathers would be 
the most satisfactory of all public events, and in the estimation 
of not a few, the great modern drama could have no other 
catastrophe more conformable to the interests of the United 
States. — Should Great Britain now refuse to abandon her sys- 
tem of blockade,-— from which we are, for many reasons, in- 
clined to suppose that she will not depart, and which our 
demagogues are very far from wishing to see relinquished, no 
efforts will be omitted, — no passions or prejudices left un- 
assailed, — that may reconcile the public mind to the most 
desperate of all measures — a war with that power. The 
country has been more than once drawn to the brink of this 
fatal precipice, and it is now sanguinely expected that we will 
cast ourselves headlong into the abyss. Such is the doctrine 
which is already urged in the democratic gazettes, and we 
must confess that we are not without our fears with regard to 
its success. Unless the majority be enlightened on this ques- 
tion, and roused to a just sense of the dangers to which they 
will be exposed by any form of alliance with France^ gux 

A Z 



4 



Past and present Relations of 



follv may swell to the pitch which her emissaries and her 
dupes have in view. Men of weak understandings and warm 
tempers may be heated and blinded by arguments plausibly 
urged ; and the person who is now the ostensible head of the 
prevailing party may either suffer the moderation of his tem- 
per to be overborne by the violence of his associates, or con- 
sent to espouse their passions. 

We are filled with dismay at this prospect, because we are 
firmly of opinion that any close connexion with France will 
seal the ruin of the United States. We know certainly and cir- 
cumstantially that this country has a mortal and indefatigable 
foe in Bonaparte, and that our destruction is already sys- 
tematically planned and industriously prosecuted. We know 
also the character of this foe, and that his resources of ar- 
tifice are not less abundant and destructive than his instru- 
ments of coercion. We will not hesitate to pronounce that our 
fate is indivisibly united with that of England, — and if she 
falls, or should be provoked to consign us over to the irre- 
sistible force, or to the still more " hostile amity " of France, 
\ye may bid adieu not only to the blessings of freedom, but to 
the common comforts of existence. In the gradation of servi- 
tude we shall be the least favoured class, and may expect to 
be oppressed and bruised to the utmost limits of human en- 
durance. It is irksome to utter these verba male ominala — 
these ill-omened presages ; and it may not be unattended with 
danger. But there is no consideration of false delicacy, or of 
peril, which should deter an honest politician, either at this 
moment, or in any similar conjuncture when the best interests 
of the country are at stake, from proclaiming the trulh 3 and 
showing the whole compass of the evil. 

It is therefore, that we new propose to submit to our readers 
an examination of the late letter to general Armstrong ; to- 
gether with some observations on questions in which we hold 
the safety of this country to be vitally concerned. We shall 
commence by a review of the deportment of France towards 
the United States anterior to that date, in order that we may 
be better enabled to seize the spirit and to fathom the motives 
pf the new decree. To ascertain the previous state of the 
mind of a party on a particular subject, is to advance veryyfar 
an the discovery of the true character and object of his de- 
clarations and proceedings at any time on the same subject, 
provided no adequate cause have existed in the interval to 
produce a revolution in his opinion or feelings. If our country 
has been for the last three years habitually insulted, menaced^ 
and abused by the French government, and is now, without 



France and the United States. 



5 



any conciliatory submissions on our part, suddenly applauded 
and caressed — common prudence suggests that we should 
construe this unaccountable change as a new form of hostility, 
until we have the most convincing proof to the contrary* 
Sudden, unsolicited overtures of friendship from a power 
which for a series of years has practised against you every 
form of wanton and opprobrious enmity, should, so far from 
being greedily accepted, operate to keep you at a more cau- 
tious and jealous distance, and to fortify you in your distrust 
of his intentions. 

Since the commencement of her revolution, France may 
be said to have existed by rapine and injustice, and by the 
very condition of her existence to have been at war with all 
mankind, The present government partakes in the nature of 
the revolutionary usurpations, and is essentially hostile to the 
whole human race. It can only continue to flourish while 
it continues to devote the finest countries on earth to ravage 
and to desolation : — while it proscribes all the moral virtues 
and all the charities of the heart : — while it pursues at home, 
under the guise of legal justice, and upon the plea of state 
necessity, a system of administration the most shamelessly 
immoral and the most cruelly oppressive, with which it has 
ever pleased the Almighty Providence to scourge any people. 
Blood and plunder constitute the nourishment of this rapacious 
and homicide despotism. Both from necessity and appetite, 
it must be constantly engaged in odious usurpations, and in 
acts of the most atrocious violence. There is something as 
stupendous in its profligacy as in Us power. To gratify the 
ambition and the cupidity of . the ruler of France, the whole 
habitable globe must be ransacked and enslaved. In order 
that mankind may be habituated to one scheme of polity alone, 
and that the spirit of liberty may be utterly quenched, every 
free government must be extirpated. All the state-papers and 
the public acts of France which have any relation 10 foreign 
countries, correspond to the spirit and the views with which 
we represent her to be animated. In pretensions as well as in 
fact, she trangresses all bounds of moderation and of equality, 
tier public documents of every description insult and degrade 
all independent governments. They uniformly challenge obe- 
dience from the rest of the world, and arrogate a supremacy 
©f power and of dignity*. They assert, without qualification 

Among the most ignominious badges, as well as the most inextricably, 
fetters, or the servitude to which the tributary powers of ihe Aorh of 
Europe are subjected, is the compulsory establishment of the new French 
jurisprudence in their dominions. An elaborate work has recently keen pub*. 



6 



Past and present Relations of 



or reserve, the grossest falsehoods ; and when they do not 
menace or calumniate, they either wound by sarcasms, or, — 
as in the case of the paper which we shall analyze,- — indulge 
in professions of good-will, the hypocrisy of which is not less 
vile, than the intention is malignant. 

In the person of every foreign minister at Paris, let his pri- 
vate character be what it may, the majesty of an independent 
government is habitually insulted and degraded. At this 
court of " upstart pride and plebeian insolence" he receives 
no attentions or courtesies but in the shape of alms, and must 
learn to submit throughout all the forms of diplomatic inter- 
course, to a tone of haughty superiority, and to an air of over- 
weening arrogance. Neither in Rome during her most intoxi- 
cating successes,— nor at the levee of the barbarian Attila, — 
nor under the dominion of the still more savage directory of 
France, — did foreign ambassadors ever appear more like 
" plenipotentiaries of impotence," or undergo more humili- 
ating indignities, than at the imperial audience of theTuilleries. 
The impetuous sallies of passion, — the ferocious menaces, — 
and the petulant reproaches to which they are alternately ex- 
posed, are not more incompatible with the temperate and 
natural majesty which belongs to regular and civilized mo- 
narchies, than utterly irreconcilable to the dignity and to the 
independence of the governments whose representatives are 
thus brutally assailed. There is not one of the diplomatic 
corps to whose unfortunate lot it has fallen to solicit the 
restoration of property violently ravished from his country, 
men, who has not daily experienced the most mortifying 
neglect or the most insulting repulses. Scarcely one dares 
expostulate on the violation of private rights — which are, 
however, public wrongs in almost all instances. This system 
of degradation is now invested with the authority of pre- 
scription, and is submitted to universally as to an established 
order of things ; — as to a body of peculiar customs ; — just in 
the manner that we view the tribute paid to Algiers; or that 
the ambassadors of Europe consent to prostrate themselves at 

lished in Paris, the purpose of which is to refute the objections which had 
been occasionally made, and which might arise, against the adjnissioa of the 
l^apoleon code into the tribunals of Germany. This code has been already 
made the municipal law of Westphalia, and will soon become that of Sweden 
and Denmark, and perhaps of the whole conrinent (if Europe. It is an in- 
strument of dominion scarcely less powerful than the sword. We shall soon 
fee able to apply to France what Claudian said of Rome, 

Armorum kguwqui parens, qui fandit in omnes 
impejium. * Be. Consul StUic» 



France and the United States. 



9 



the footstool of an oriental monarch ; — or that the Dutch, 
in the prosecution of their trade with Japan, were said to 
trample on the cross. 

Before we commence the particular discussion of Bona- 
parte's deportment towards us, we will make, with regard to 
his government, another general observation — which was 
originally applied by Mr. Burke to the revolutionary banditti, 
and which is equally just in the present case. It is this : — 
that no arrangement can now be made with France in the 
pacific spirit of the conventions of former times. There are no 
elements of good faith remaining in her cabinet: — there are 
no ties of interest, according to her system, which can 
prompt or bind her to a durable pacification. She has no 
common modes of action or habits of policy, — no conformities 
or sympathies, with the rest of mankind. Her plan of univer- 
sal conquest insulates her, and makes all compacts or treaties 
which she may form, either weapons of annoyance, or a pre- 
paration for more destructive hostility. The passions, — the 
habits, — the necessities of her rulers confine them to one in- 
variable system of war Gn the human race. If we were to 
form a solemn treaty, or to arm in co-operation, with them, 
what is it that would serve as our guarantee ? Surely not any 
resemblances, or sympathies, or feelings of attachment between 
the individuals of the two nations ? Surely no mutual dread or 
respect between the two governments? Surely no sentiments 
of charity or gratitude on the part of France in favour of a 
weak but devoted ally? There is no man in his senses who can 
rely upon any of these considerations for the national safety. 

Since, then, there are "noobligations written in the heart," 
— no principles of fear, — which could restrain France hereafter 
from violating her engagements with the United States, we 
must depend upon her sense of interest alone, the sole spring, 
as it is sometimes contended, of the actions of all govern- 
ments. But who is it that will affirm, that six months or a year 
hence France will deem it her interest to be at peace with the 
United States ? Are we quite certain that her government, 
notwithstanding its present declarations, does not mean to 
wage a systematic war on commerce in every quarter of the 
globe? Is it probable that Bonaparte will consider it as his 
interest to foster the political institutions of the United States? 
Or rather does not every argument which analogy or facts can 
furnish, lead to an opposite conclusion ? There are, we think, 
the most irresistible proofs to be deduced from both, which 
show that it never will fall within " the views of his policy," 
to promote the trade, to increase the power, or even to 



s 



Past and present Relations of 



tolerate the constitution of this country. If we were to ad- 
mit that it wquIcI remain the obvious interest of France to 
cultivate and preserve our friendship, there are circum- 
stances in the relative position of the two nations, which 
would render the continuance of a good understanding be- 
tween us at all times extremely doubtful. — <c We trust too 
<c much/* says Mr. Burke, ee to the interests of men as gua- 
<c ranteesof their engagements. The interests frequently tear 
" to pieces the engagements, and the passions trample upon 
" both." The passions of the French government are domi- 
nion, — hostile intrigue, — military glory, — contempt of trade 
and traders, — hatred to whatever is English; — >and these pas- 
sions will inevitably smother its true interests, i( and trample 
€( upon" its most solemn engagements. 

It is universally admitted that our national dignity has 
been grossly outraged, and our rights repeatedly invaded, by 
the government of France. The robberies and the insults to 
which we have been subjected during the last three years 
would seem quite sufficient to have exasperated, roused, and 
determined any high-minded people. Until the promulgation 
of the late lullaby from our imperial lover, his proceedings 
had almost conquered that obstinacy of unbelief with regard 
to his real dispositions, and that code of absurd and pernicious 
opinions, by which the understandings of our majority were 
fettered, and of which the tendency is no less fatal than the 
foundation is weak. Even our administration — as timorous 
as women in their relations with France, as froward as chil- 
dren towards Great Britain — were compelled to acknowledge 
the futility of their humble efforts to propitiate their rapa- 
cious ally, and announced to the public the possibility of 
some further intelligence from Paris still more distressing 
than the confiscation of all the American property within his 

S ras P* 

They did not, it is true, disclose this ominous catastrophe 
in that strain of lofty indignation and of manly resentment 
which became the guides and guardians of a powerful and 
magnanimous nation, — but in puling regrets and piteous la- 
mentations, which, however unsuitable to the dignity and ob- 
ligations of their trust, were still calculated to startle the mere 
dupes of party, and to testify the hopelessness of our long and 
eager pursuit after the ruinous fraternity of French despotism. 
On reading the wailings of the National Intelligencer, we be- 
gan to hope well for the good cause, and were even grateful 
to the French emperor for having, by his intemperate rapa- 
city, forced upon all parties the conviction that his cannibal 



France and the United States, 



9 



friendship was not to be conciliated by any importunity of so- 
licitation, or by any number of pious diplomatic pilgrimages. 
But it seems that we were too sanguine ; — that the majority 
are about to relapse into that preposterous credulity from 
which they were but imperfectly reclaimed ;— -that a mere de- 
claration of Bonaparte, full of palpable falsehoods and of ar- 
rogant pretensions, is to outweigh all the sad experience of 
the past, and to heal all the wounds which he has so recently 
inflicted both on our commerce and our honour. We call upon 
the reflecting men of this country to pause before they give 
full expansion to the fancy on this subject, and to determine, 
upon a comparison of the past language and conduct of Bona- 
parte with his present professions, whether there be any ra- 
tional grounds for exultation at this crisis; — whether the cha- 
racter of the present French government, such as we have 
portrayed it, justifies the hope that we can, without certain 
destruction, ever form any close connexion with France while 
that government endures. 

We shall commence an investigation of the past deportment 
of Bonaparte by a review of the Berlin decree ; not because it rs 
the first in the long funeral procession of our wrongs, but be- 
cause it forms an epoch in the history of French injustice, and 
was the preface to a general plan of politics with respect to this 
country and to the continent of Europe. The leading object of 
this plan we suppose to have been, — the extinction of trade in 
all the countries subject to French influence, and as a conse- 
quence — the decay of the commercial spirit and of the genius- 
of freedom. We mean however to consider the Berlin decree 
merely in the light of an unwarrantable invasion of neutral 
rights, and of the independence of all neutral nations. On this 
point also, little need be said, as the most zealous advocates 
of French injustice do not now hesitate to admit that it de- 
serves to be so described. It was at first liberally interpreted as 
an act of territorial sovereignity alone; but this construction, so. 
soothing to the fears and hopes of our administration, was 
soon invalidated by a solemn declaration of the framersf, 

■'■ It is rather singular that this decree should at any time have been con- 
sidered as an exercise of mere territorial sovereignty. This would have been 
its true character if it had been only a prohibition to neutrals t» enter the 
ports of France after having touched in England ; but, according to the official 
expositions given of it at the time of its enactment, it tvent so far az to inter- 
dict England as a place of destination to neutrals, leaving the porti of Jtrinc'e, 
This was an exertion of authority beyond the limits of municipal jurisdiction, 
It is said expressly in a report made by Talleyrand to the emperor on this 
subject, of the date of the 20th November 1806— " that every 'vessel w'ai'ch 
" should attempt to sail from the ports of France or her dependencies tor 
5 s England, should be seized and confiscated," The s^m? idea is ?epea,ted, 



to 



Past and present Relations of 



The secondary aim of the French government in enacting 
this decree was, we believe, to provoke the British cabinet 
into measures of retaliation $ and thus both to facilitate the 
destruction of trade on the continent, and to fan the flame of 
discord between us and Great Britain. The studied ambi- 
guity with which it was worded, was treacherously calculated 
to second this part of the design \ and its operation was in- 
tentionally narrowed in order to lull the apprehensions of our 
merchants, and to enable the American government to save 
appearances by giving it an interpretation favourable to the 
integrity of their rights. A3 soon as the British orders in 
council appeared, conformably, as we think* to the wishes 
and expectations of Bonaparte, the mask was entirely remov- 
ed, as it was at once seen, that, in consequence of the severer 
pressure of those orders upon our trade, nearly the whole 
weight of the public resentment would be turned against 
England, and that our administration, if not precipitated, 
by popular fury and factious intrigue, into a war with that 
power, would, at least, be relieved from the embarrassment of 
making even a show of resistance to France. The Berlin decree, 
was then, — in violation of the law of nations and of the parti- 
cular treaty existing at that time between the United States and 
France, — officially announced to have been intended from 
the beginning as a prohibition to neutrals of all trade with 
England, Such was the first general attack made on our 
neutral rights by Bonaparte; and the injury of this proceeding 
was aggravated by the insulting deception practised in the 
first instance with regard to the scope of his decree ; — by the 
mockery of a delusive interpretation from the minister of the 
marine, written without doubt — as all the public declarations 
of such a functionary must be,-— under the authority of the 
Emperor, — and afterwards so impudently disavowed and can- 
celled *. In this transaction, as well as in all our subsequent 

the proclamation of general Bourienne to the senate of Hamburg, dated Nov. 
23d, 1806. 

* The French minister of foreign affairs condescended to trifle with 
general Armstrong in the following way: \n a letter dated 21st of August 
1807, on the subject °f the Berlin decree, he holds this language : "As the 
*' execution of the maritime measures indicated by the imperial decree of 
" Berlin rests naturally with his excellency the minister of the marine, and 
•* as, moreover, he has already had the honour of addressing some observa- 
*' tions to you on the subject of the application of that decree, t asked him 
" for the new explanations which you might desire." In a second letter, 
dated September 1 8th, 1807, he tells general Armstrong that he had sub- 
mitted to his imperial majesty the doubts of his excellency the "minister of 
the marine on the subject of the extent of some of the provisions of the 
imperial decree, and that his majesty had not decided ** -whether French cruisers 
4t might possess themselves of neutral vessels going to or from England, although 
"* they had no English merchandise on board " — and finally, in a third letter of 
fyeHltr 'y'i 1807 — (f that his rcajssty did consider evtry neutral "vessel gcin$ 



Trance and the United States* 



1! 



relations with France, and eminently in the late proceedings 
• — not only has our independence been trampled upon, and 
our property plundered, but we have been treated like children - 
and dotards — as poltroons and dupes — alternately bullied and 
cajoled, spurned and caressed. 

The justification alleged for the Berlin decree by the 
framers, and the palliation offered in this country by the 
friends of France, rest upon the system which the British 
cabinet had antecedently pursued with respect to neutral 
commerce. We will not hesitate to allow that this system was 
not always liberal or just, and that it has often savoured more 
of " the waywardness of will than of the steadfastness of 
** law *." Nor are we more backward to assert that it has not 
deserved all the invectives with which it has been alternately 
overwhelmed by every commercial nation ; and that the acts 
of rigour and oppression with which it is charged may be as 
frequently traced to an erroneous conception of right or to the 
pressure of a seeming necessity, as to the lust of plunder or 
the spirit of lawless usurpation. But it is not necessary to 
investigate the injustice of British claims, or the abuses of 
British power, in order to show that they afforded no solid 
platform for the Berlin decree under the circumstances in 
which the world was placed at the period of its enactment. 
Nor will it, we trust, be deemed incumbent upon us to trace 
the previous history of Bonaparte in order to make our readers 
sensible with how poor a grace, or rather with what matchless 
effrontery, he now undertakes to inveigh against the abuses 
of power, and to proclaim himself the avenger and the cham- 
pion of neutral rights. 

It cannot be denied but that our trade was in a most 
flourishing condition at the period when the Berlin decree 

" from English ports with cargoes of English merchandise, or English origin, 
" as lawfully seizable by French armed vessels." 

* If the world were in any other state than the present, we yrpijld remind the 
British nation of the following passage from Mr. Burke: • 

"Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss*' tb-take one pre- 
*' caution against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our o^^ppwer and our 
" own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded. It is ridiculous to say 
" we are not men; and that, as men, we shaU never wish to^ggrandize our- 
" selves in some way or other.— Can we say, that even at this frery hour we 
'f are not invidiously aggrandized? We are already in possession of almost 
** all the commerce of the world. Our empire in India is an awful thing. If 
«' we should come to be in a condition not only to have all this ascendant iri 
*' commerce, but to be absolutely able, without the least control, to hold the 
** commerce of all other nations totally dependent upon our good pleasure, we 
" may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard-of 
** power, but eveiy nation will think we abuse it. It is not impossible but that, 
& sooner or later, this state of things may produce a combination against US, 
" which may end in our ruin." 

B % 



tt 



Past and present Relations of 



was promulgated. Our commercial prosperity was in " its 
" high and palmy state,'* notwithstanding the vexations and 
losses arising from the British system. France and the coun- 
tries subject to her control were as abundantly supplied with 
articles of foreign produce as was consistent with the character 
of the war which they waged, and with the nature of the of- 
fensive means employed by their enemy. After Great Britain 
had annihilated the marine of her antagonists, it followed of 
course and of right, that the active foreign trade of the latter 
was to cease, and that their ports were to be blockaded when 
an actual force could be provided for that purpose ; — that the 
field of enterprise for neutral trade was to be narrowed, and 
the number of ports for its reception greatly curtailed. These 
were >the natural and legitimate consequences of a maritime 
superiority achieved with a vast expenditure of blood and 
treasure, in a regular course of fair hostilities. These were 
the consequences which we were to expect. Of these nei- 
ther this country nor France had a right to complain. They 
were not breaches of the laws of nations, but the natural 
and necessary effects of naval force which, from time imme- 
morial, had been so applied. 

The emperor of France could not but be sensible of these 
truths, and therefore, in order to make out something like a 
case against Great Britain in his official vindication of the 
Berlin decree, he is compelled to assert quite a new code of 
public law which never existed but in the distempered fancies 
and wild theories of the revolutionary madmen of France, 
and in the.ahsurd writings of some of our own visionary poli- 
ticians. It is declared that none but fortresses can be lawfully 
blockaded ; and England is stigmatized as the tyrant of the 
seas, and accused of trampling upon the public law of Europe, 
because she exercises the right or search, and captures even 
the merchant-vessels of her enemy at sea *. We had once at 
the head of the councils of this nation a speculative and philo- 
sophic friend of Bonaparte, and, consequently, of the human 
race, who it is said had adopted this novel scheme of maritime 
war; but we presume that there is no man now engaged in the 
direction of our affairs, — no sober-minded person in this 
country,— -who would consent to fight the British, or who 
would defend the Berlin decree, on such grounds as these. 
As well. might England have announced to the world that the 
public law of Europe was violated, whenever continental war- 

* See the Reports made to the emperor and to the' French senate on the sub- 
ject of the Berlin decree^ and the fetter of Champagny to general Armstrong 
dated August 3 2d, 1809. 



France and the United States, 13 

fare was extended beyond the mere rencounter and capture 
or destruction of troops, and have issued and justified her 
orders in council upon the ground that the unfortified towns 
or her allies were occupied, — contributions levied upon 
them, — and soldiers billeted upon their inhabitants ! If our 
disputes with the British concerning the impressment of 
seamen, the right of a direct colonial trade, or the affair of 
the Chesapeake, — questions in which France had no real 
interest, — could justify the interference of Bonaparte by the 
Berlin decree, then might the British have enacted their 
orders in council upon the ground of our separate altercations 
with France, — upon the confinement of American seamen in 
her prisons, — the arbitrary detention and seizure of American 
vessels in her ports; the burning of them at sea, — the bounda- 
ries of Louisiana, and a host of etceteras. There is a perfect 
parity of reasoning in the two cases, and a much broader 
basis of analogy for the British. 

That which appears to the eyes of our public as the, 
strongest point of defence, and the most plausible pretext for 
the Berlin decree, is, the manner in which the British are 
said to have exercised the right of blockade, even according 
to their own definition. We must confess, that, after a very 
diligent research into this matter, we can find but few in- 
stances in which the principles of blockade were enforced for 
any length of time under the avowed authority of the British 
government, without an actual investiture. Certainly the 
cases which have occurred were not a sufficient ground for 
war ; nor can the most extravagant advocate of France con- 
tend that the general practice under this system was such as 
to warrant so tremendous a retaliation as the Berlin decree. 

The leading case of constructive blockade which Bona-' 
parte, knowing well how insufficient it was for bis purpose, 
forbears to specify in his official vindication of his decree, is 
that of May 1806, comprising the whole coast' from; the 
Elbe to Brest. It may be well briefly to examine this case, 
in order to ascertain what foundation it affords for the Berlin 
decree. It is not avowed as a constructive blockade^ nor is 
the right of blockading without actual force arrogated, by 
Mr. Fox in his official notification of this measure to Mr. 
JVlonroe *. His Britannic majesty is declared to have ordered 

* The notification is as fol!ovvS. 

MR. FOX TO MR. M N 8.0 P.. < c " ' 

Do-wning-st'set* May 1 6. l'8o6. 
*-5Ths undersigned, his majesty's principal secreftajcy of state for foreign, 
affairs, has received his majesty's reprimands to acquaint Mr. Monroe, that 



'Past andpresmt "Relations of 



the necessary measures to be taken for blockading the entire 
coast, and it is correctly stated that a considerable part of that 
coast (from Ostend to the Seine) was then actually and 
strictly blockaded. It does not operate like ordinary blockades^ 
as a prohibition of all trade with the ports or coasts so block- 
aded, but merely interdicts the ingress of vessels trading di- 
rectly from a port of the enemy, or laden with enemy's goods* 
We know not whether the British admiralty board could 
station on this coast a force sufficient for the object of a 
blockade, — but of this we are sure, that the British govern- 
ment had a right to interrupt the trade with which alone thi3 
nominal blockade interferes *. 

The inducements to this measure on the part of the British 
cabinet are alleged by Mr. Fox to be the extraordinary mea- 
sures taken by France to distress the commerce of British 
subjects, and (he might have added) of neutral traders also. 
These measures, on which we propose to say more hereafter, 
were indeed extraordinary ; and if this transaction, or any 
other antecedent and supposed abuses of maritime power by the 
British, be deemed sufficient to justify the Berlin decree, the 
former might afford, by the same mode of argument, the 
fullest justification not only for the blockade in question, but 
for the orders in council. The measures of France in ques- 
tion were no other than the usurpation of an authority in all 
the cities along that coast, — many of them nominally free and 
neutral,- — to harass and annihilate the trade in British com- 
modities, and to confiscate all articles of British merchandise, 

the king, taking into consideration the new and extraordinary means re- 
sorted to by the enemy for the purpose of distressing the commerce of his 
subjects, has thought fit to direct that the necessary measures should be 
taken for the blockade of the coasts, rivers, and ports, from the river Elbe to 
the port of Brest, both inclusive ; and the said coast, rivers, and porrs art 
and must be considered as blockaded; but that his majesty is pleased to de- 
clare, that such blockade shall not extend to prevent neutral ships and vessels, 
laden with goods not being the property of his majesty's enemies, and not 
being contraband of war, from approaching the said coasts, and entering into 
and sailing from the said rivers and ports (save and except the coast, rivers,- 
and ports fiom Ostend to the river Seine, already in a state of strict and ri- 
gorous blockade, and which arc to he considered as so continued), provided 
the said ships and vessels, so approaching and entering (except as aforesaid;, 
shall not have been laden at any port belonging to or in the possession of any 
of his majesty's enemies, and that the said ships and vessels, so sailing from the 
said rivers and ports (except as aforesaid), shall not be destined to any port be- 
longing to or U the possession of any of his majesty's enemies, nor have pre- 
viously broken the blockade-" 

* See this argument fully developed in a masterly note of lord Howick fnow 
rail Grey) addressed to Mr. Rist the former Danish chargi des affairti in Lon- 
don, and contained in the New Annual Register for iSo;. 



Traiice and the United States, 15 

to whqmsoever belonging, whether to neutrals or to British 
subjects : — -thus grossly violating, with sensible injury to the 
pritish, the most sacred and important neutral privileges. 

What then is there in this blockade of the coast from the 
.Elbe to Brest co-extensive with the Berlin decree, either in the 
injustice of the principle or even in the injury of the prae^ 
tice ? What plausible justification can be alleged for the Berlin 
decree, which the British might not have urged to support the 
orders in council, had they been issued in the first instance ? 
Jn prohibiting all intercourse with Great Britain, in conse- 
quence of the idepredations of the British on neutral trade, 
the conduct of Bonaparte was not more warrantable, than that 
of the British would have been, if they had interdicted all 
communication with France and her dependencies, in conse- 
quence of the outrages perpetrated by Bonaparte on the neu- 
tral nations of the continent. The plea of England would, in 
fact, have been stronger, inasmuch as her interests were more 
deeply affected by the depredations of France than were those 
of the latter by the injustice exercised by Great Britain on the 
ocean. 

We do not pretend to vindicate the orders in council. They 
have always appeared to us, notwithstanding the provocation 
of the Berlin decree, as in the highest degree ill-timed, impo- 
litic, and unjust*. — But if they had been issued even before 
that decree, they might have been much more plausibly de- 
fended, and ppon much stronger grounds. Contending as 
Great Britain does for her existence against a foe' who, ac- 
cording to her doctrines, can be weakened and brought to 
terms, only by the commercial distress of his dominions, she 
may, with some colour at least of right, employ her power to 
the attainment of this end. This ground would be much more 
dignified as well as more solid than the principle of retaliation 
and the acquiescence of neutrals. 

The cjoctrine of retaliation is of recent date, and appears to 
us to be pregnant with the most pernicious consequences. By 
the term retaliation we have always understood something 
Tike measure for measure; — an injury proportioned to an 
jnjury. But t^e orders in council, as far as this country was 

* Lord Temple asserted (in the house of commons) in the debate of Fcbtuary 
5th, 180S, on'the orders in council, " that the French directory in 1797 had 
*' adopted a line of conduct similar to the decree of the 21st of November;— 
f* that, on the occasion, there were many who applied to Mr. Pitt for a mea- 
*' sure of retaliation, like what had now been adopted. But the latter an- 
*' swered, that he had too much respect for the constitution of the country and 
" the law of nations to do so.— Such was his policy." 



Past and present Relations of 



concerned, went immeasurably beyond all limits of equality to 
the provocation. Our acquiescence in the Berlin decree, how- 
ever incompatible with our honour and our real advantage, was 
less detrimental to the interests of Great Britain than any in- 
effectual resistance would have been ; and there can be no 
doubt but that all resistance would have been ineffectual. 

The doctrine, that one belligerent has a right to trample 
upon all neutral rights, and to ruin all neutral trade, merely 
because another chooses to set the example, is warranted bv 
no precedent whatever in the history of the former wars of 
Europe, and leads to the most revolting consequences*. It 
would entail the virtual abrogation of the law of nations during 
any hostilities which might supervene between any two lead- 
ing powers. As soon as one profligate belligerent committed 
an outrage upon neutral rights, the other, according to this 
reasoning, would be absolved from all the obligations and 
Restraints of that great code, which was formerly considered 
as no less binding in time of war than in the season of peace, 
and which, principally on account of the protection which it 
afforded to the weak and pacific, was, before the French revo- 
lution, the pride and security of the civilized world. Neutral 

* We may well apply ro this case the following passages from lord 
ISrskine's elegant protest against the principle of the Copenhagen expe- 
dition: 

" It is the first and most indispensable maxim of public law, founded 

indeed upon the immutable principles of justice, that no violence should 
*' be offered by one state to another, nor any intrusion made upon the rights, 
" property, independence, or security of its inhabitants, except upon an aggres- 
" non by mch tiafe, and the refusal of adequate satisfaction ; or in the rare in- 
" stance- of indispensable necessity, involving national destruction, such as in 
ts the case of an individual would justify homicide for self-preservation: and 
" the observance of this rule should, if possible, be held more sacred by great 
" and powerful nations, it being the very end and object of universal law to 
*< g;vt perfect security to the weakest communities, under the shadow of an 
*' impartial justice. 

" Such a principle would be utterly subversive of the first elements of 
«' public, law, being destructive of the independence of weaker states, ina<^ 
** much as it would create a jurisdiction in the stronger nations, to substitute 
" their own security and convenience for the general rule, — and invest them 
** also with the sole privilege of determining the occasions upon which they 
** might consider them to be endangered. To justify the attack and plunder of 
4< a weak, unoffending power, upon the assumption that a stronger belligerent 

might otherwise attack and plunder her, would be to erect a new public law 
V upon the foundations of dishonour and violence, making the tyranny of one 
" nation, a warrant for substituting the dominion of oppression for the sacred 

obligations of morality, humanity, and justice." 

Mr. Madison has argued this question with great force and propriety in his, 
letters to Mr. Pinkney on the orders in council. — The arguments on this subject 
which are contained in a note of the former to Mi.Erekine, dated 25th March 
1808, are, we think, altogether irresistible. 



France and the United States, 



nations may — if this new principle of retaliation should pre*» 
vail, — give up their rights in despair, as it will scarcely ever 
happen that war will not be waged between the great mo- 
narchies of Europe, — and that one of the belligerents will not 
be found sufficiently profligate to break through the fences of 
the law of nations, in order to secure some temporary advan- 
tage, or to gratify some momentary resentment. 

The Berlin decree first asserted this mischievous doctrine 
of retaliation, which, unsound as it is in its essence, was emi- 
nently futile in the case it was adduced to support, and a'most 
ludicrous in the mouth of a power so notoriously regardless 
of the principles of justice and of the rights of neutrals. Even 
if we admit the validity of the general doctrine, the injury 
which France herself had sustained — or to which our com- 
merce had been subjected by any unlawful exercise of the* 
maritime power of Great Britain, furnished no matter of reta- 
liation to warrant a measure, which, if it could have been 
carried into full operation, would have lopped off the most 
important branch of our trade, and severed us, as a member 
of the commercial world, from the head and heart of the 
commercial system. 

The trade of the United States flourished to an unexampled 
extent in the year 1806 — the era of the Berlin decree. Franee 
and the nations of the continent, although exposed to much 
distress from the natural and legitimate effects of the British 
superiority at sea, were then comparatively easy, and not ill 
supplied with commodities from abroad. We wanted no such 
vindication of our rights; — they required no such remedy for 
their sufferings, as that which his imperial majesty conde- 
scended to provide*. 

We believe there is no well-informed and dispassionate po- 
litician who, upon an attentive consideration of this subject, 
will not find himself compelled to admits that the Berlin de- 

* The character "which Bonaparte himself gives to his decree deserves to 
be reported. " It has been painful to us," says he in his message to his se- 
nate on this subject, l< to return, after so many years of civilization, to the; 
*' principles which characterize the barbarity of the first ages of nations." 
The minister of foreign relations, in his report to his master oh the same 
subject, — after declaiming against England in the u$ual strain, proceeds in 
this way : " Against a power which forgets to such a pitch all ideas of jus- 
*' ticfe and all humane sentiments, what can be done but to forget them for 
** an instant one's---elf, in order to constrain her to violate them no longer? 
" The right of natural defence allows of the opposing an enemy with the 
" arms he makes use of, and, if I may so express myself, to react against 
"him his otvn Juries and jo/ty j' 

C 



i8 



Past and present Relations of 



cree was the first great, sweeping invasion of the commercial 
interests and independence of this country : — that it struck 
at the root of all commercial intercourse in time of war : — 
that it was the source and fountain-head of all the evils-*-" of 
" that Iliad cf woes" — which have since afflicted this country, 
and the continent of Europe : — of the embargo — that miserable 
subterfuge of folly and pusillanimity — which as a defensive 
system resembled — to employ a comparison of Bolingbroke — 
a suit of armour too heavy to be borne, that wasted the vital 
strength of the wearer; which under the imposing aspect of 
an heroic self-immolation, was, in fact, but a ruinous and dis- 
graceful flight from difficulties which our administration had 
not the courage to face, nor the wisdom to avert, and which, 
as is happens to nations in all cases where they prefer a sacri- 
fice of honour to the risk of danger, have multiplied upon us 
and besieged us ever since *. 

The emperor of France has rendered himself justly re- 
sponsible by his decree for the mischievous effects of the 
orders in council; of which, — as he intentionally provoked 
them, — the malignity may be imputed to him, and the folly 
to the British ministry. We think that every good citizen 
should detest and combat the spirit with which that decree 
was framed, if, — as it appears to be almost universally ac- 
knowledged, — it had for its ulterior object, the kindling of 
a war between the United States and England ; — an event 
which, as Bonaparte well Knows, would infallibly induce our 
ruin. Above all, — we hold the Berlin decree in utter abhor- 
rence, and so should all patriotic Americans, as the original 
cause of that state of things in Europe, which has led, in- 
cidentally, to an exposure before the world, of the imbecility 
of our public councils. Had not that decree been issued, 
our administration might not have fallen, for want of an 
excitement, into that policy of degradation, by which we 
have lost cc the high flavour and mantling" of our revolu- 
tionary honours, and all estimation in the eyes of mankind. 
Since the epoch of the Berlin decree, humiliation has been our 
element — our valetudinary habit. We have grown, — as Mr. 
Burke said of his own government in consequence of its for- 
bearance with the directory, — u more malleable under the 
c * blows of France/' Fortune, "'that common scapegoat of poor 

* K Nothing," says Mr. Burke, '* is so rash as fear. The counsels of pu- 
" sillanimity very rarely put off, while they are always sure to aggravate, the 
** evils from which they would fly." Regicide Peace. 



France and the United States, 



r 9 



iC politicians/' — has become our chief reliance. After having 
been for a series of years buffetted and plundered, mocked 
and insulted by a military despot, we seem transported with 
joy at the first smile which he deigns to give us, although our 
reason dictates that it is still more fatal than his frowns ; and 
our honour exacts from us an indignant rejection of the em- 
braces of a tyrant who is the implacable and indefatigable foe 
of that freedom which we profess to adore, and who presents 
himself reeking with the blood and bloated with the plunder 
of innumerable victims, whose only crime was resistance to 
his insatiable ambition *. 

We have dwelt so long on the Berlin decree, that we are 
enabled to add but a few words on the subject of that which 
was afterwards issued from Milan. If the former had even 
been strictly just, the latter, which was declared to be a sort 
of supplement or corollary, would, on account of the unpa- 
ralleled violence of its character, have rendered Bonaparte — 
if we may so express ourselves — a trespasser ah initio on the 
laws of nations ; — as in municipal jurisprudence, the abuse 
of a legal privilege sometimes operates retroactively to taint 
and vitiate the whole course of action. 

The Berlin decree, upon a fictitious plea of retaliation, 
interdicted to neutrals all trade with England and her posses- 
sions ; and although the efficacy of it was not coextensive 
with the design, it was, in its partial operation, of very serious 
injury to our interests. The orders in council, built upon a 
mixture of truth and falsehood, as to fact, and upon what ap- 
pears to us a gross error in doctrine, — the pretended right of 
retaliation, — allowed us no trade with France and her depen- 
dencies, but upon condition of paying a toll or tribute to Eng- 
land. The Milan decree, as a system of reprisal again, tran- 
scended all bounds of justice and moderation, and aimed, in 
fact, at the total banishment of neutral commerce from the 
ocean. It subjected to capture and confiscation every neutral 

* When we reflect upon the elevation to which this individual is exalted, 
— "his head striking the heavens;" — upon his private character, which is 
gloomy, unsocial, and taciturn in the extreme ; upon the unhallowed spoils 
which he has heaped about him, and on which he riots in sullen complacency 
and in " grim pomp," we are forcibly reminded of the description which 
Virgil gives of Polyphemus in his cave : 

Ipse ardutts, altaqne puhat 

Sidtra : (Di } talem terris averti/e pe&temN 

Nee "vhufacilh nec dlctti ajfabilis ulli. , , 

[f'tsceribus misererutn ft ianguint vetcitftr atrs 
V'idi egetnet.— 



C 2 



20 



Bast and present Relations of 



vessel which submitted to the operation of the orders in coun- 
cil, or consented to be searched or visited by a British cruiser; 
leaving thus, — if it could have been executed, — no alternative 
to the neutral, but the total relinquishment of navigation. If 
the marine of France had been such as to enable her to 
execute her decrees, a neutral ship would have been almost 
as certainly exposed to encounter a French or English cruiser 
as to feel the winds of heaven. As the case was, the extent 
of the British navy reduced it to almost the same certainty. — s 
By a refinement of injustice, our merchants were rendered 
responsible for the pressure of an unavoidable necessity, 
unless they chose either to condemn themselves to total 
inaction, or to make war upon a nation against which we 
possess no means either of annoyance or defence, and of 
which the hostility would be less fatal than the alliance of 
France. 

There was in the Milan decree much of impotent fury 
indeed, but not less of rancorous malice. Whatever impe- 
tuosity of temper may belong to Bonaparte, we know well 
that he has an equal share of sagacity and craft. Those who 
imagine that he issued his decrees merely with a view to the 
proximate effects which his physical means enabled him to 
give them, — or in a paroxysm of rage, without weighing well 
the absurd disparity between those means and the ends which 
}ie professed to have in view, have attended but very superfi- 
cially to the course of his actions, and are but ill informed 
with respect to the acuteness and sangfroid of his counsellors. 
JJaving the result of our own personal observation before us, 
and the transactions of his reign in our eye, we can never 
image him to ourselves as a madman in his cell fancying 
himself to be Jupiter, and hurling paper bullets, in the persua- 
sion that they were the unerring thunderbolts of the monarch 
of Olympus. In laying his interdict on the navigation of the 
ocean, and pronouncing a solemn sentence of excommuni- 
cation against England, he resembled the popes of the six- 
teenth century, when they attempted to exercise an impotent 
authority, and to revive an obsolete claim, only in the ridicu- 
lous disproportion between his means and pretensions. Bona- 
parte never would have exposed himself to the derision even 
of his own subjects, by declaring England to be in a state of 
blockade, if his object had been simply to assert an abstract 
right of reprisal, or to prevent the circulation of pritish mer- 
chandise throughout his dominions. 

We do not know an instance in which the spirit of rodo- 
montade natural to the French character, or the impulses 



Trance and the United States* 



21 



of rage, have hurried him into measures not conducive to 
some politic and deliberate purpose ; and we are well assured 
that it was not under such influences that he issued his 
impracticable, and seemingly vain-glorious menace against 
England. He involved neutral commerce in one sweeping 
prohibition, and drew an imaginary circle about England, not 
with the sole view of interrupting her commerce with the con- 
tinent, but in order to furnish the British cabinet with a mea- 
sure of retaliation suitable to the latitude with which he wished 
them to act, and also to rouse such feelings, either of indigna- 
tion or of faise apprehension, as would impel them to retaliate 
in practice to the full extent of his theoretic provocation. 

He thus achieved two important ends, which we must sup- 
pose him to have had in view, in order to be enabled to furnish 
a rational explanation of the seeming extravagance of his con- 
duct. The. one was to obtain from the British an efficacious 
co-operation in his plan of extinguishing the whole trade of the 
continent, and to shift the odium of the event from himself to 
them : the other, to provoke a war by the same means between 
us and Great Britain, — an event which would not only injure 
his enemy in her most vulnerable points, but contribute more 
than any other state of things to deprive the continent of Eu- 
rope of trade, as the British would, in that case, soon sweep 
all foreign commerce from the ocean. The Milan decree was 
but another step in the prosecution of the same plan. It pro- 
ceeded neither from irritation, — nor from any view to the 
accomplishment of the avowed purpose ; — nor was it intended 
as a mere assertion of rio;ht in order to convince the world that 
France did not mean to admit the pretensions of her rival. 7'he 
Milan decree was destined to confirm the English ministry in 
their policy of retaliation ; and to kindle new alarms in the 
people of this country on account of the new dangers and pro- 
longed imprisonment with which it seemed to threaten their 
trade. All these clamorous declamations against British in- 
justice ; — these vindictive but ineffectual denunciations against 
the su;iineness of neutrals; — this blustering and licentious 
violence of doctrine ; — were, in fact, on the part of Bona- 
parte, mere theatrical parade; — a well-wrought veil to blind 
the British to his real views; — so many stimulants to exas- 
perate us the more against his enemies, and to alarm our timid 
statesmen into submission. 

He knew well that our national irritability was connected 
with a strong principle of calculation, and a lively sensibility to 
cur immediate interests. He foresaw that the United. States, 



22 



Past and present Relations of 



forgetful of the malignity of the chief juggler, would be ready- 
to wreak all their vengeance on his shortsighted foe, who, in 
blind subserviency to his schemes, crushed us with the weight 
of her power. He reasoned from an accurate knowledge of the 
public mind of this country, when he supposed, that, smarting 
under the deep wounds inflicted by the misguided but potent 
ministry of England, it would ascribe to them, and couple 
with the exercise of their maritime superiority, all the rancor- 
ous malevolence and profligate cupidity bv which he himself 
was animated. He drew no false conclusion concerning the 
combined operation of our prejudices and our fears, when he 
argued that all the indignities and outrages which he might 
heap upon us would, — while the causes of our resentment 
against Great Britain continued to subsist, — be but faintlv re- 
sented, or perhaps overlooked. — He manifested correct views 
of human nature when he calculated that even the nations of 
the continent, perishing from the want of trade, would forget 
the true origin of their privations, and reserve their hatred for 
the British, the immediate instruments of their distress. He 
anticipated, that, seeing no hope of relief from within, they 
might 'co-operate the more cordially in his plans for the de- 
struction of England, — the apparent obstacle to the revival of 
their commerce. After having trampled upon our dignity and 
our rights, and gratified his love of plunder at our expense, 
he now discovers that, from the operation of various causes, 
the people of this country are not to be driven or terrified 
into a war with England; and he has, therefore, on this ac- 
count, and for other reasons which we shall discuss in the 
sequel, resolved to employ another tone, and to make a seem* 
ivg change in his policy. 

About the period when the Berlin decree was promulgated, 
measures were taken by the French government for the seizure 
and confiscation of all merchandise whatever of British origin, 
without any exception in favour of neutral owners, — in various 
ports of the Mediterranean, and of the North of Europe. " I 

find," says the American secretary of state, in one of his 
letters to general Armstrong, " by accounts from Hamburg, 
" Bremen, Holland, and Leghorn, that the trade and property 
iC of our citizens have been much vexed by regulations sub*T- 
a tern to those of the original decrees of November." The 
regulations which are here, in the mezza voce — the soft lan- 
guage of Mr. Madison, said to have vexed the trade of Ame- 
rican citizens, amounted to nothing less than the absolute 
confiscation, in ports nominally independent of I'rance x of a vast 



France and the United Stales. 



2 3 



quantity of merchandise and colonial produce alleged to be 
of British origin, although acknowledged and known to be the 
bona fide property of American merchants. The trade in these 
commodities was warranted by the law of nations, — it had 
been before regularly carried on under the authority and im- 
plied protection of the governments to which the ports men- 
tioned above were ostensibly in allegiance. — it was prosecuted 
by our merchants without an apprehension of danger, and 
without a suspicion that it was held to be illegal even by the 
French government. — Yet the seizure was made without any 
formal prohibition of the trade itself; without any previous 
intimation of an intention to proscribe it; and in direct op- 
position to the wishes and to the interests of the governments 
within whose jurisdiction and under whose protection our 
citizens had placed their property. Deputations were sent 
both from Tuscany and Naples to Paris, under the auspices 
of the sovereignties of those countries, humbly to solicit the 
restoration of the plundered merchandise. Exertions to the 
same effect were made by the American minister in the French 
metropolis ; but their united entreaties and remonstrances 
were unavailing, and no restitution whatever has as yet been 
made for so wanton a robbery. - 

There is no principle of the law of nations more firmly 
established or generally recognised than this ; — that it is the 
duty of a state, when about to discontinue even an indulgence 
accorded to the subjects of another, to give clue notice to the 
latter of the intended change, if it be of a nature materially to 
affect their interests. To attach penal consequences, suddenly 
and without any pre\ious intimation of an offence given, or of 
umbrage taken, to a course of action either generally admitted 
to be lawful, or long indulged with impunity, is on the part of 
a government, if done with regard to its own subjects, the 
rankest tyranny, and — when practised in relation to those of 
another state, — a gross violation of the principles of public law. 
If France had long tolerated in her own dominions a neutral 
trade m commodities either the produce of British manufac- 
tures or the growth of British possessions, believing it never- 
theless to be contraband, she could ' not, without infringing 
our rights, have taken our merchants engaged in it bv sur- 
prise, and inflicted upon them the penalties of guilt for a 
commerce supposed by them to be innocent, and never de- 
clared by herself to be criminal. But to stretch the arm of her 
military power to the territories of other states ; and there to 
plunder our citizens of a large amount of property as a punish- 



24 Past and present Relations of 

ment for the prosecution of a trade not repugnant to the laws 
of nations, or to any municipal regulation, was an outrage of 
a much more flagitious character, and one in which our go- 
vernment never should have tamely acquiesced. 

If there could be any indignity more overwhelming than 
this, it is the burning of our merchant- vessels at sea by French 
cruisers, without the shadow of right or real necessity. We 
beg leave to call the attention of our readers to this topic for a 
moment, and for our opinions shall claim the support both of 
Mr. Madison and of general Armstrong, whose sentiments have 
been strongly expressed on this subject. Various instances of 
the kind have occurred, and are specified by our minister in 
his official letters. Mr. Madison, in a communication made to 
the latter on this point, holds the following language : " The 
" burning of neutral vessels detained on the high seas is the 
" most distressing of all the modes by which the belligerents 
" exert force contrary to right; and in proportion as it is desti- 
" tute of apology, ought at least to be the promptitude and 
" amplitude of the redress. If it be contended that the de- 
" struction in these cases proceeded solely from the danger, 
" that otherwise intelligence might reach a pursuing or a ho- 
" vering force, it may be answered, that if such a plea were of 
" greater avail, it would only disprove an hostility of intention, 
" without diminishing the obligation to indemnify on the most 
" liberal scale, the injured individuals. It may be added, that 
* c if the outrage on the individuals was not meant as a hostility 
Si towards their nation, the latter might justly expect a tender 
" of such explanations as would leave no doubt on this sub-. 
" jeet." General Armstrong is then instructed to make for- 
cible representations, in order, as Mr. Madison expresses 
himself, " to awaken the French government to a sense of 
" the injury, and to the demands of justice." The French 
government did continue to sleep, however, notwithstanding 
a note of expostulation from our minister ; and our own 
administration also have been, since, content to slumber over 
the affair, although this, " the most distressing of all the modes 
" by which the belligerents exert force contrary to right," re- 
mains without redress either for the individual sufferers or for 
this nation. 

General Armstrong, in a note addressed to the French 
minister of foreign affairs, states, " that the property saved 
" from four American ships burnt by rear-admiral Boudin 
" was placed under the jurisdiction of the imperial council 
".of prizes, to be judged of as a case of ordinary cap- 



Trance and the United Slates. 



** lure*" We beg our readers to remark tjie nature of this 
proceeding. The vessels were first destroyed at sea, and that 
part of the cargoes which the rapacity of the French officers 
tempted them to snatch from the waves and the confla- 
gration, was then consigned over by the minister of the 
French marine to the council of prizes to be there adjudged 
as good.prize to the incendiaries. It must be superfluous to 
remark, that if the French government had condescended to 
justify this xtl of extreme violence by the plea of that 
necessity to which Mr. Madison alludes in the paragraph 
quoted in the last page, it must have not only surrendered 
without hesitation to the sufferers, the property saved, but 
made them ample compensation for the loss which they had 
sustained. The cause of justice required this retribution, and 
the dignity of the United States demanded still more. The 
United States, as Mr. Madison himself remarks, had a right 
to expect full proof, or at least a very respectful explanation, of 
the urgency of the motives by which the French cruisers 
were reluctantly driven to so mischievous an exertion of su- 
perior force; for it i& in this view of the case only that the 
act could be at all defensible!. But this 66 just expectation" 
was disappointed, and with an aggravation of injury of the 
most mortifying as well as unexampled kind. 

The question was placed by the French government on a 
ground which they who are " to vindicate the liberty of the 
<c seas" should have been the last to adopt, and which must to 
every mind appear strangely incongruous in the mouth of the 
professed champion of neutral rights. The burning of a 
neutral ship at sea was, by the clamorous apostle of neutral 
privileges, classed under the head of maritime capture in that 
regenerated and tolerant code, in the propagation of which 
we are so strenuously invited to co-operate. It was at once made 
a question for the determination of his court of admiralty, ivhe- 
iher the commander of a French cruiser could not lawfully burn 
on the high seas a neutral vessel luhich he supposed to he engaged 
in an illegal voyage', and ■whether he was not' entitled to hold as 
good prize the property saved from t!,e wreck? 

* Note of July Toth, T?o8. 

f It is obvious, bo-wever, that the mere apprehension that the neutral might 
give intelligence to the foe of the route of a French squadron would not con- 
stitute a full justification for the destruction of the merchant-vessel. If this 
plea were deemed available in all instances, what would be the situation of our 
merchants, hundreds of whose ships rni-ht be encountered on the ocean by a 
tinglp squadron of his- imperial majesty? 

% 



Past and present Relations of 



It was not merely in the case of the vessels mentioned by 
general Armstrong that this doctrine was maintained, but in 
several other instances. There is no exaggeration in any part 
of the above statement. We have now in our hands a very 
able memoir, or plaidoyer, on this point, presented to the 
council of prizes at the instigation of the American prize 
agent in Paris, and drawn up by the late charge des affaires of 
France to this country, who was then an advocate or solicitor 
in that court. The case which he discusses is that of an Ame- 
rican schooner, the Jefferson, burntatseain 1809 by a French 
squadron under the command of vice-admiral Troude. The 
matter was referred by the minister of the marine to the 
council of prizes; and the justification offered by the vice- 
admiral was simply this — " that the vessel had an unlawful 
."-destination, and carried false papers.'*' This allegation as to 
the fact is satisfactorily refuted by the solicitor, but the legal 
argument is what should claim our attention particularly. 

The counsel resolves his argument into two points, the first 
of which is as follows : M Can the aimed vessels of his im- 
" perial majesty lawfully burn neutral vessels on the high 
" seas, and docs this act constitute a regular capture ?" This is 
a very curious subject, indeed, for grave discussion and deli- 
beration in the courts of a power which so ostentatiously pro- 
claims the liberality and philanthropic fastidiousness of its ma- 
ritime code ; and which now affects to be struggling for the 
emancipation of the seas from the arbitrary dominion of the 
British. We should like to know what language sir William 
Scot would hold to an advocate of Doctors' Commons, who 
might propound to him for formal adjudication a question of a 
similar tenour; or whether the archives of his court, so often 
stigmatized as the mere organ of British despotism, afford an 
example of solemn argument on such a point in relation to 
JJrilish cruisers *? 

* In the course of his argument, the late French charge des affaires men- 
lions a circumstance of considerable interest to this country, and which has 
never been publicly announced to us Speaking with reference to some 
papers found on board the Jerierson, and signed by one of the Spanish con- 
suls in this country, he says, " We know that his majesty the king of Spain 
•* (Joseph) nominated about a year ago anew minister to the United States 
« of America,— Mr San Yvanes, — that place being vacant by the recall mad-* 
** under Charjes IV. of the marquis d'Yrujo. But t; e new minister still 
*' remains in Paris in the capacity of secretary to the Spanish embassy, and 
** has not yet gone to his post. It is probable that he was to take out the new 
*' seals with him." 

Doubtless this new minister still retains his credentials in his pocket. He 
■yraits only for the period when a pretext for his reception «n:iy be afforded 
Sfj our cabinet by the spectacle of a nation breathing torth Hit last sigh of 



Fiance and the United States, 



It may not be deemed impertinent if we here recall to our 
readers some of the maxims enjoined by the conventional law 
of nations, and adopted by Ci the tyrants of the seas" — with, 
respect to the forms of capture, and to the duty of cruisers in. 
the exercise of this belligerent right. The American public 
will be then better enabled to judge how far their neutral 
privileges have been infringed, and their national dignity has 
been outraged, by the summary process of conflagration, to 
which the cruisers of his imperial majesty have thought 
proper to subject their vessels on the high seas. We cannot 
advance on this subject doctrines sounder or anv language 
stronger than those of the French advocate whose memoir w&~ 
have cited. He is now, we trust, before a tribunal with whom 
his reasonings may be more successful than they were with 
the French council of prizes. 

" To obviate the inconveniences incident to the right of 
<( search," savs this distinguished civilian, — u very positive 
Cf rules of conduct have been prescribed in the various treaties 
<c of commerce, to the officers whose province it is to exer- 
<c cise this belligerent privilege. By the conventional law of 
iC nations also, certain duties are imposed upon the neutral, in 
<( order that if, on the one hand, the discretionary powers of 
" the naval officer are circumscribed within the narrowest 
" bounds, he may encounter, on the other, no unnecessary 
(i impediments to the discharge of his duty. It is enjoined 
(< upon the neutral to give him every facility for this purpose. — 
" A refusal to obey his summons ; — the concealment or de- 
<{ struction of the most inconsiderable document; — a sensible 
" deviation from the route prescribed by the destination indi- 
c< cated on the face of the papers; — are sufficient causes, either 
M of suspicion or of condemnation. If the cruiser have serious 
" doubts concerning the truth of the statements made to him, 
" or the genuineness of the papers produced, he may take the 
(C neutral ship, and send her to one of the ports of his govern - 
u ment, there to be tried by regular and competent tribunals, 

freedom, and sinking indignantly under the reiterated and merciless blows 
of a tyrant whose power is only equalled by his ferocity, and who will ex- 
ercise upon his fallen antagonist a severity of vengeance only to be Surpassed 
by the vindictive malevolence of Yah spirit and the base treachery of h:s first 
aggression. — Should the Spaniards soon fall, iheir struggle, which has-been in- 
many respects so ruinous to the conqueror, will be a sufficient proof to other 
nanons, that, with a suitable spirit and timely exertions, the cause of freedom 
is net yet desperate. 

Non tamen ignavse, post ha?c exernpla virorum, 
Percipient gentes, quam sit non a;dua \iitus 
jServitium fugibse manu. Luc, lib, 



28 



Past and present Relations of 



,s But the obligation which rests upon the neutral of sub- 
(( mitting to these proceedings, is compensated by correlative 
(S duties on the part of the belligerent. The acquiescence of 
" neutrals in the just prerogatives of the latter should not be 
ft to them a source of ruinous or capricious molestation : — 
(C otherwise their lot would be worse than that of an enemy, 
" who may seek safety either in flight or in resistance, both of 
Cf which are interdicted to the neutral. 

<e If states in amity with the belligerent powers consent to 
" subject the property of their citizens, in the first place to the 
<( discretion of the naval officers of those powers, and then to 
(( the decisions of their tribunals, it. is undoubtedly under the 
(C condition and in the hope, that the discretion of the officer 
u will be regulated by reason and restricted by law, and that 
<f the abuse of his authority will be punished with the utmost 
€i rigour ; and moreover, that the determinations of the bel- 
" ligerent tribunals will be scrupulously consistent with the 
<( principles of public law, and be pronounced by upright 
<( judges above all suspicion of partiality or corruption. 

" This return which the neutral has a right to expect from 
<c the belligerent is guaranteed and prescribed by the majority 
" of treaties, and sanctioned by all the maritime codes ever 
cf promulgated. There are no points upon which the principles 
" of public law and the compacts of states are more uniform 

and precise than upon the questions connected with the con- 
i( duct of cruisers, and with the modes of proving andpunish- 
<{ ing the abuse of their privileges. — So minute and strict are 

they on this subject, that vessels exercising the right of 
* f search are enjoined to keep beyond cannon-shot; — that t\V9 
u or three men only can be sent on board the neutral; — that 
Si the captain cannot be compelled to leave the deck during the 
* f time of the search ; — that the neutral should be released 
<c without delay in case no cause of suspicion be found to 
<e exist— and should there be, — the papers of the captured 
<( vessels cannot be taken away, unless a regular receipt be 
" given for them. It is particularly provided that the captors 
<c should conduct their prize to one of the ports of their 
<( sovereign — there to he judged; and they are expressly for- 
" bidden to dispose of the prize in any way, or even to open 
£C the hatchways, during the voyage or before condemnation. 
*v <f They are not entitled to remove the captain from his ship, of 
** which he still remains in some sort the guardian : — and 
c i many states go so far as to prohibit even the ransoming of 
u neutral vessels : in France the power of ransoming an 

enemy's ship is expressly refused. Every precaution, as we 



France and the United States, 



29 



tfc may observe, is thus taken to prevent abuses, and to secure 
<f to the neutral the speedy restoration of his property, if the 
* f suspicions of the captors be not confirmed by the judgment 
" of the prize-court. The motives which influence the latter 
" in its decisions should be specified, in order that the pro- 
" pricty of them may be known to the neutral governments 
*' whose interests they affect. Nothing, therefore, but a case of 
6i imperious necessity could authorize the burning of a neutral 
" ship on the high seas. It is an act of mere force, which may 
<£ be said to cancel the treaties ivhich connect the French empire 
iC with the United States of America. It is an act, therefore, 
" which should attract the severest animadversion from the 
" French government, and ivhich all the competent authorities 
u should emulously disclaim." 

We have not the space nor can we find the language to 
comment as we could wish upon the Ramlouillet decree, — the 
climax of the wrongs, and the profoundest depth of the hu- 
miliation of this country. In seizing and confiscating the 
whole of the American property within his reach, the em- 
peror of France gave a proof of his hostility about which it 
was impossible even for his most ardent partisans to equivo- 
cate. By an act tantamount in every respect to a declaration 
of war, and accompanied by the most destructive violence of 
which that state, if it had formally existed between us, could 
have been susceptible, he left our administration no subter- 
fuge;— he probed them, and cut with the incision-knife to the 
innermost part : — he gave them no alternative but utter dis- 
grace or unhesitating resistance. They felt the wound : they 
saw the havoc made of the property of our merchants, and of 
the national honour : — but the lethargy which their fears had 
prompted them to feign, was not discarded. They made no 
manly, warm, indignant appeal to this nation, which would 
then have mounted to any elevation to which a magnanimous 
executive might have led the way. The popular feeling would 
have borne them out in any manful decision, if they had them- 
selves displayed a suitable force and dignity of character. 

This nation stands acquitted, in some degree; because in every 
country, and eminently in this, government must furnish both 
the impulse of sentiment and the calculation of interest ; — or, 
at least, must exert a direct influence to give efficacy and aim 
A.0 these principles of action. With heartless, narrow-minded 
rulers, no people, however well constituted or disposed,— !-if the 
nature of their institutions and the peculiar circumstances of 
their condition lead them to look both for information and 
feeling to those rulers,— can be expected to act greatly, or to 



Past and present Relations of 



travel steadily in the paths of high honour and true wisdom. 
A nation will naturally tread in the footsteps of those whom 
she has constituted her guides and directors, and is prompted 
by various motives to make their opinions the measure of her 
own. Such must eminently be the case in our own country, 
where the heats of party-contention produce in the majority 
a more than common degree of deference and attachment 
towards the men whom they invest with power. Mr. Burke, 
in speaking of England, says, " that all warm, durable, mag- 
<c nanimous passions, — all steady resolution of spirit, must, 
" come from those who are at the helm." — " As well/' 
adds he, " may we fancy that of itself the sea will swell, 
" and that without winds the billows will insult the adverse 
" shore, as that the gross mass of the people will be moved, 
u and elevated, and continue by a steady and permanent 
Ci direction to bear upon one point, without the influence of 
<c superior authority or superior mind." Hence the incal- 
culable importance, in elective governments particularly, of 
a judicious choice of public functionaries, who may, if they 
happen to be men of narrow views and sordid spirit, coun- 
teract and paralyze the most noble propensities and the most 
ductile temper that were ever given to a nation. 

In all that we say on the subject of our relations with 
Prance we must be understood as pointing our censure to the, 
administration, and not to the people of this country. The 
latter we do not indeed altogether exculpate from supineness 
with regard to the outrages of that power, nor from a strange 
insensibility to the weakness and folly of their public councils. 
But we believe them to be as capable as any other on earth of 
running the full lengths of honour, and of surveying the whole 
broad horizon of elevated state policy, if they were properly 
enlightened, and directed, and stimulated. They have sur- 
rendered their confidence and delegated their power to un- 
suitable agents. The profound writer whom we have quoted 
above, remarks, in relation to his own country, " that even; 
* € there the little had triumphed over the great;" — a victory 
which he describes as neither unnatural nor unusual. It is not 
to be wondered at then, if the same victory should be obtained 
here. 

There is, we think, but one tenour of exertion by which the 
natural but deplorable consequences of this state of things may 
be averted. A direct, frank, unequivocal appeal must be made' 
to the good sense and to the higher feelings of this nation* 
The full deformity of our situation should be unhesitatingly 
exposed. There is " no piety in the fraud" which would con- 



France and the United States* 



ccal from the public eye u the lazar sores" which now fester 
on the body politic, and which are open to the perception of 
the rest of the world. The distemper is of too mortal a cast 
and too deeply radicated, to yield to the remedies prepared in 
the dispensary of those politicians who would attempt to 
cure the ills of the state by the very arts which produced, and 
which would now inevitably aggravate them. The people of 
this country must be made to taste all the bitterness of the 
shame which has been brought upon them by their favourites, 
— the popular opinion must be enlightened to the whole ex- 
tent, and the true nature, of the dangers with which we are 
threatened : — otherwise their delusion will continue until all 
admonition may be fruitless and all repentance unavailing. It 
is under these impressions that we write, and we should con- 
sider ourselves as cheats and empirics, and not the lovers and 
physicians of the state, if we concealed any part of the senti- 
ments which we honestly entertain, and shall always plainly- 
express concerning the public weal. 

With regard to the Rambouillet decree and the endurance 
of our administration, it is impossible to affect any disguise. 
The world is too well apprised of the history of this trans- 
action, and will put the true construction upon the conduct of 
our executive, whatever reserve we may choose to affect. The 
emperor of France under a mere pretext, amounting however 
to no more than this — that we had exercised a privilege of 
territorial sovereignty — issued a decree bearing date the 13th 
March 1810, of which the following is the chief article : " All 
iS vessels sailing under the flag of the United States, or owned 
cc entirely or in part by any American citizen, which, since the 
Ci 10th May 1809, have entered, or which shall hereafter enter, 
f c any of the ports of our empire, of our colonies, or of the 
" countries occupied by our armies, shall be seized, and 
<£ the proceeds of them, when sold, deposited in the caisse 
i( d'amortissement, or sinking fund." This ex post facto lawfof 
confiscation was carried into effect as promptly as possible, 
r;;d is now in a course of execution. If this decree were sub- 
mitted to a jurist of the old school, he would not, we think, 
hesitate to call it an absolute declaration of war. If a states- 
man of the same school were informed that a government 
styling itself independent had tamely endured an act of such 
heinous injustice and treachery as this visitation upon the 
property of our merchants, he would suppose either that na- 
tional honour was now wholly exploded, or that a strange 
revolution had occurred in the meaning of terms. What 
would be bis surprise, moreover, if he were again told that the 



3- 



Past and present Relations of 



same government, still advancing pretensions to dignity and 
independence, bad, within a few months after, consented to 
open a mangled, oppressed, harassed, precarious trade with the 
power from whom it had sustained this outrage, without pre- 
viously obtaining reparation for the insult, or full restitution 
of the property confiscated ! He would then, we think, begin 
to imagine that a singular change had been wrought, not only 
in our ideas of national dignity and equality, but in our no- 
tions of common prudence and decorum. He would find 
something extraordinary and not at all edifying, in the spec- 
tacle of one nation brooking from another all the depreda- 
tions of war, and yet leaving her assailant to enjoy all the ad- 
vantages of a state of peace. It cannot be denied that this is 
exactly the situation into which we have been thrown by our 
administration with regard to France, and it requires no great 
share of sagacity to discern that it is precisely the attitude 

mOSt ELIGIBLE AND DESIRABLE FOR THAT POWER. 



After this investigation of the acts of Bonaparte towards 
this country, let us now examine what has been the tenour of 
bis language. His feelings and intentions are to be collected as 
well from the lone of his official notes as from the exertions of 
his power. If a succession of wanton robberies and deeds of 
unparalleled injustice and violence be accompanied by a cor- 
respondent series of unwarrantable pretensions and contume- 
lious expressions, there is wanting no external indication at 
least, of the most inveterate contempt and hostility. 

In the former intercourse between governments, decorum of' 
language was held to be as necessary to a state of amity as an 
abstinence from violence in action. Insolent or taunting re- 
flections, — menaces or reproaches, — arrogant counsels from 
one to another, — dictation of any kind in questions, the deter- 
mination of which is among the attributes of independence, 
were universally received as demonstrations of hostility, and 
acknowledged as good grounds of war. They were in fact 
almost as frequently the causes of the wars of Europe, as 
actual usurpations by arms. The honour, and, consequently, 
the best interests of every nation, were supposed to be vitally 
concerned in resistance by force to insults of language ; and 
that government was held to sacrifice its dignity and indepen- 
dence, which suffered them to pass with impunity or without 
retraction. This code was found to be as useful and as ne- 
cessary to nations, as it is to individuals in the common inter- 



France and the United States, 



caursc of society, in order to preserve a chaste self-estimation, 
and to keep alive feelings of mutual respect and good-will. 
We are sorry to be compelled to say, that our rulers seem to 
have forgotten all the lessons of experience on this head, and 
have suffered themselves to be vilified with a tameness no less 
abhorrent from the usages of former times, than opposed to 
true dignity and sound policy. The specimens which we shall 
now adduce of the tone and language of the French govern- 
ment towards this country, will serve to establish this posi* 
tion, while they afford unerring indications of the hostile feel- 
ings of Bonaparte. 

If our limits would permit, we would recall circumstantially 
to the recollection of our readers the correspondence between 
the American and French governments on the subject of the 
trade to St. Domingo. The haughty dictatorial style of the 
notes of general Turreau; — the dogmatical assertion of prin- 
ciples of national law, to which an unqualified assent was im- 
periously demanded, although they were far from being clear 
or unquestionable ; — the peremptory, tranckant language of 
Talleyrand's notes to general Armstrong, wherein he de- 
clares si that the trade should last no longer*," were but ari 
accumulation of insults which a magnanimous cabinet would 
have repelled with indignation. The scope, however, of this 
article will permit us to do no more than merely refer the 
reader to this extraordinary negotiation, in confirmation of 
our remarks. We shall proceed to examine a correspondence 
of a more recent date, which must be "fresh in the recollection 
of the American public. 

One of the first and most remarkable in true series of the 
opprobrious addresses of the French ruler to this country, 
was the letter of Champagny, dated January 15th, 1808, to 
general Armstrong, in answer to various remonstrances which 
the latter had made concerning the Berlin and Milan decrees. 
Those remonstrances, although strong and in general firm, 
suitably to the character of the writer's mind, were, however, 
tinctured with the spirit of his employers here, and were, 
therefore, not merely respectful, but almost supplicatory. The 
return made to them was in no flattering style.— The letter of 
Champagny, after declaiming, as usual, against England, and 
arrogating to France the right of overleaping all limits pf law 
and justice in imitation of the supposed example of her enemy, 
proceeds to enumerate the wrongs which England has clone 

* " Cela ne pent pas durer davantage." 



34 



Past and present Relations of 



us, — to dictate the measures which we were to pursue, — and 
to personate, as it were, the government of the United States, 
The following is a part of the text i 

(i In the situation in which England has placed the con- 
f tinent, especially since'her decrees of the nth of Novem- 
" ber, his majesty has no doubt of a declaration of war against 
" her by the United States. Whatever transient sacrifices war 
" may occasion, they will not believe it consistent, either 
" with their interest or dignity, to acknowledge the monstrous 
cc principles and the anarchy which that government wishes to 
t( establish on the seas. If it be useful and honourable for all 
<( nations to cause the true maritime law of nations to be re- 
<( established, and to avenge the insults committed by England 
" against every flag, it is indispensable for the United States, 
" who, from the extent of their commerce, have oftener to 
ss complain of those violations. War exists then in fact, le- 
(( tween England and the United States ; and his majesty con- 
<c siders it as declared from the day on which England publish- 
6i ed her decrees. In that persuasion, his majesty, ready to 
" consider the United States as associated with the cause of 
F< all the powers who have to defend themselves against Eng- 
" land, has not taken any definitive measures towards the 
ft American vessels which may have been brought into our 
<( ports. He has decreed that they should remain sequestered 
tc until a cfecision may be had thereon, according to the dis^ 
(( positions which shall have been expressed ly the govern- 
" ment of the United States/' 

The United States are thus told, that unless they consented 
to act as his imperial majesty thought fit, they sacrificed their 
interests and honour; — and that our merchants were to lose 
their property fraudulently plundered, unless the country sub- 
mitted to declare itself to be in that position in which he 
thought proper to consider and pronounce it. We are forcibly, 
as it were, dragged into his offensive alliance against England, 
and have no alternative left us but to acquiesce in h'19 mandate, 
or to be wantonly robbed. — In tiie records of presumptuous 
pride and overweening licentious power, we know of no inter- 
ference in language more insulting and humiliating than this. 
In the series of the arrogant declarations of the Roman senate, 
or of the revolutionary governments of France, addressed to 
nations into whose territories their armies had already pene- 
trated, there is none more arrogant or authoritative; and we 
know not in the whole course of history, an instance of a 
power, receiving a message of this tenour or tone, which did 



France and the United States. 



3i 



not prepare either for an unconditional surrender or an active 
war *. 

It was impossible for any government styling itself inde- 
pendent, or wishing to preserve the semblance of independ- 
ence, to suffer this letter of Champagny lo pass unnoticed. 
Even Mr. Jefferson, therefore, spiritless and ductile as he was 
in all his relations with France, found himself compelled to 
instruct his minister at Paris to make some complaints on the 
subject, or rather merely to express the sense, — the transitory 
sense, — of the government with regard to it? contents, — It 
may be well to quote the language of the secretary of state to 
general Armstrong : 

66 The letter of the 15th January from Mr. Champagny to 
<c you, has, as you will see by the papers herewith sent, pro- 
" duced all the sensations here which the spirit and style of it 
iC were calculated to excite in minds alive to the interests and 
" honour of the nation. To present to the United States the 
? ( alternative of bending to the views of France against her 
M enemy, or of incurring a confiscation of all the. property of 
" their citizens carried into the French prize-courts, implied 
C{ that they were susceptible of impressions by which no ho- 
<c nourable and independent nation can be guided ; and to pre- 
§! judge and pronounce for them the effect which the conduct 
" of another nation ought to have on their councils and course 
i( of proceeding, had the air at least of an assumed authority* 
" not less irritating to the public feelings. In these lights, the 
t( president makes it your duty to present to the French go* 
<e vernment the contents of Mr. Champagny's letter, taking 
4 * care, as your discretion will doubtless suggest, that whilst you 
" make that government sensible of the offensive tone employed, 
" you leave the way open for friendly and respectful explana- 
<s tions, if there be a disposition to offer them) and for a decision 
'< here on a?iy reply which may be of a different character t.'* 

* " The Lacedemonians," says Pericles, in a speech delivered to the Athe* 
nians, " have signified their wishes to us imperiously, and leave us no choice 
*' between war or submission : they announce to us, that peace with them 
" must depend upon our decrees with regard to Megara. Yet many of you 
" cry out, that this is- not a sufficient ground for war. Athenians, sueh proposi- 
** tions as these of the Lacedemonians, are but a snare laid to entrap you : you 
* i should indignantly reject them, until we are suffered to treat upon a footing 

of perfect equality. This concern, trifling as it may appear, includes within 
" it, the full proof and demonstration of our spirit. A nation which prefer s 
*' to dictate laws to another, offers chains. If you yield upon this point, yoi t 
t*. compliance will be construed into fear, and more humiliating conditions will 
U be imposed upon you." Such were the maxims of a republic cl antiquity* 
&ce the whole speech in Thucydides, lib. i. 

f Who would have expected to see subjoined to the first phrases of tl h 

E % 



Past and present Relations of 

Let us now examine how general Armstrong executed his 
commission. — His note toChampagny on the subject does not 
certainly convey all the soft dallying accents, — all the gentle, 
pathetic reproaches, and the suppliant hints which Mr. Jeffer- 
son could have wished ; but it cautiously abstains from any 
expression of strong indignation, or any vigorous pledge of 
the spirit which his government would display, in case of the 
repetition of a language which he is compelled to describe 
as " derogatory from the rights, and dishonourable to the 

character of the United States." 

(( The undersigned must remark, with regard to the official 
" note addressed to him on the fifteenth of January last by his 
te majesty's minister of exterior relations, ist, Thai the United 
Ci States have a right to elect their own policy with regard to 
" England, as they have with regard to France ; and that it is 
W only while they continue to exercise this right, without suf- 
" fering any degree of restraint from either power, that they 
" can maintain the independent relation in which they stand to 
" both : whence it follows, that to have pronounced, in the 
ie peremptory tone of the preceding note ; the effects w hich the 
fs measures of the British government ought to have produced 
" on their councils and conduct, was a language less adapted 
* c to accomplish its own object, than to offend against the 
* c respect due from one independent nation to another : and* 



36 



letter the instructions which we have mar'red in italics ? They amount to 
this ; that general Armstrong was to beware how be dealt with edge-tools 
that he was not to appear seriously angry, but merely pout, and then smile 
and cheer up ; — that our rulers could not pledge themselves to resist strenu- 
ously any language, however outrageous or opprobrious ; and that their mini- 
ster was to be cautious how he involved them in any bold or manly declara- 
tions. 

** Die neutrum, die male, die ajiquando 
" Et bene." 

Let us place by the side of this inculcation the language of Mr. Burke, 
a statesman whose doctrines on this subject our administration must be 
willing to respect, after having enjoyed so many practical lessons of their 
*ruth : 

*' It is established by experience, that contempt of the suppliant is not the 
?< best forwarder of a suit, — that national disgrace is not the high road to 

security, much less to power and greatness. Patience indeed strongly in- 
" dicates the love of peace, but mere love does not always lead to enjoyment. 
** It is the power of winning the palm which ensures the wearing of it. Vir- 
tues have, their place, and out of their place they hardly deserve the narne. 
¥ They pass into the neighbouring vices. The whining tones of common- 
" place beggarly rhetoric produce nothing but indignation. They indicate the 

desire of keeping up a dishonourable existence at any sacrifice ; they aim at 
*' obtaining the dues of labour without industry ; and by frauds would draw 

from the compassion of others what men ought to owe to their own spirit 
w and to their own exertions." Regicide Peatc 



Fiance and the United States, 



37 



«*' sdlv, That the alternative to be found in the last para- 
<f graph', and which leaves the United States to choose be* 
li tween an acquiescence in the views of France against Great 
Britain, and a confiscation of all American property seques- 
ts tered bv order of his imperial majesty, is equally offensive 
" to both governments : to France, as it would impute to 
ft her a proposition founded on wrong to individuals ; and to 
(< the United States, as it would imply, on their part, a sub- 
ejection to pecuniary interests totally inconsistent with their 
(( principles, and highly dishonourable to their character/' 

If, in the intercourse of two independent nations, anterior 
to the French revolution, one of them had held towards the 
other a language such as that here ascribed to the French 
government by general Armstrong; — a language which im- 
plied that the party addressed was susceptible of impressions 
by which no independent and honourable nation could be 
guided, and which prejudged and pronounced for that party 
the effect which the conduct of another nation ought to have 
on its councils and course of proceeding; — which accused it 
of a subserviency to its pecuniary interests at the expense of 
its honour, — a recantation in some way or other would have 
been deemed an essential preliminary to negotiation of any 
sort ; and, perhaps, the only condition upon which peace 
could be maintained. An high-minded cabinet, alive to the 
dignity of the nation, would be no more satisfied with a mere 
fruitless expostulation in such a case, than would an indivi- 
dual of spirit and honour in society, to w hom another had 
applied the epithets of scoundrel and poltroon. 

The question of expediency in both instances is exactly the 
same. What is the particular interest of the individual in 
the one case is the general good of society in the other. 
Human passions work precisely in the same way. Submission 
to affronts dastardizes more and more the spirit of the suf- 
ferer, and emboldens and sharpens the unpunished insolence 
of aggression, To overlook an insult is to provoke an injury. 
The transition is natural and inevitable from unresisted in- 
dignities of language, to acts of brutal violence. If the history 
of mankind clearly establishes any one point, it is this, — that 
honour is to a nation w"hat the locks of Samson were to him;—- 
and the experience of the last eighteen years proves incontro- 
vertibly, that whatever power yields to the blandishments, or 
Teclines on the lap of French sorcery, whether crowned with 
the bonnet -rouge, or disguised in the imperial mantle, will en- 
counter the fate of the credulous Israelite. Nations are strong 
in proportion to their daring ; — pQssunt quia posse videntur. — 



Past and present Relations of 



There is no mode in which left-handed wisdom or spurious 
prudence can be exercised so unprosperously and fatally as by 
the sacrifice of glory and dignity to any temporary or pecuniary- 
interest. Such a sacrifice, however, will become habitual with 
a nation which suffers its affairs to be long managed by men 
without real ability or virtuous ambition, or in which popular 
clamour, in lieu of some great, central, presiding power, is 
allowed to influence and control public measures*. 

What was then the issue of this representation concerning 
the light in which the president viewed the contents of this 
letter of Champagny, and the feelings which it was alleged 
to have aroused in the people ? After an affront so serious as 
that which the language of Mr. Madison himself implied, it 
would seem naturally to follow, that the angry cloud would 
not have been soon dispelled from the brow either of this 
nation, or of its rulers; that even no further communication of 
a very cordial or amicable nature would have been suffered, 
until full expiation was made; or, at least, until the obnoxious 
phrases were so qualified and explained as to assuage the 
wounds of the national pride, and to calm the alleged efferves- 
cence of the national feelings. — The insulted majesty, the 
violated sovereignty of a great people, required the atone- 
ment of kind and respectful professions, before they could, 
deign to resume the commerce of courteous diplomacy, or 
even before they could, in negotiation on other topics, re- 
ascend to the level of a fair and dignified equality. — So 
would have thought a speculative politician, reasoning on the 
nature of true dignity and public interest, and drawing lessons 
of practical wisdom and prudence from the experience of 

* " Woe to that country," says Mr. Burke, " which would madly and im- 
" piously reject the service of the virtues and talents, civil, military, or re- 
?? ligious, that are given to grace and to serve it ; and would condemn to ob- 
t< scuiity every thing formed to diffuse lustre and glory around a state. Woe 
*« to that country too, that, passing into the opposite extreme, considers a low 

education, a mean contracted view of things, a sordid, mercenary occupation, 
H as a preferable title to command. Every thing ought to be open; but 
*' not indifferently to every man." And again—" The people ought to be 
<( persuaded that they are not entitled, and far less qualified, with safety to 
" themselves, to use any arbitrary power whatsoever; that therefore they 
if are not under a false show of liberty, but in truth, by the exercise of an un- 
fe natural inverted domination, tyrannically to exact, from those who officiate 
" in the state, not an entire devotion to their interest, which is their right, 

but an abject submission to their occasional will ; extinguishing, thereby, 

in ail those who serve them, all moral principle, all sense of dignity, all 
" use of judgment, and all consistency of character ; whilst, by the very 
te same process, they give themselves up a proper, a suitable, but a rhoiz 

contemptible prey lo the servile ambition of popular sycophants and flat- 
i( tereis." 



France and the United States. 



39 



mankind, and the authority of all the statesmen, historians, 
and jurists who have discussed and decided such questions. 
Not so, however, our political Palinurus and his coadjutors. 
They appear to have abjured all the "heresies and errors 
lc of experience and observation,'' and to have formed a code of 
honour and of wisdom altogether peculiar to themselves, and 
unknown to the rulers of other nations. After transmitting 
their few phrases of mendicant remonstrance, they continued 
their relations of deprecation and entreaty, as if they them- 
selves and the nation had been uniformly treated with all the 
solemnity of oriental complaisance. They received no apo- 
logy. — They exacted none; and the consequences were such 
as might have been expected, and as yield an additional con- 
firmation of the maxims which we have advanced above. 

" The Gaul that throws his sword in the scale," did not, like 
his prototypes of old, in their deportment towards the patrician 
senate of Rome*, first gaze on and bend with reverence to 
our immovable rulers, and then pluck their beards ; but he 
first reviled, and then trampled them under foot. Fortunate 
would it have been if they had then imitated the resolution of 
the fathers of Rome, or if they would now take as their 
manual the history of that extraordinary power which fur- 
nishes eminently to us in our present situation, so many salu- 
tary and apposite lessons with regard both to our foreign and 
domestic policy ; — so many illustrious examples of true state- 
wisdom and enlightened patriotism, and, above all, so many 
awful admonitions concerning the nature and effects of that 
most portentous of all combinations, — an irresistible military 
force directed by a spirit of insatiable ambition, and steadily 
applied to the attainment of universal empire. 

So far from being prompted by the representations of gene- 
ral Armstrong to make reparation for the offence of which 
our administration complained, the French ruler pursued the 
course most congenial to his character, and to which he was 
naturally invited by the pusillanimity of our government. The 
same offensive insinuations were repeated in the notes, which 
by way of reprimand, and instruction, and exhortation, the 
imperial minister subsequently addressed to general Arm- 
strong ; — and not long after, a most signal illustration of the 
legitimate influence of the truly neutral forbearance of our 
cabinet was afforded in the absolute confiscation, upon which 
we have already dwelt, of all American property within the 
grasp of our soi-disant protector. We were here at war indeed, 



Plutarch's Life of Can»illus, 



43 



Past and present Relations of 



according to the signification formerly affixed to the term, and 
nothing was wanting to give it all the new and savage features 
with which Bonaparte has invested that state of things, but 
the imprisonment of all the American citizens within his do- 
minions, as in the case of the British, — or the repartition of 
them, as slaves among the peasantry of France, as in the case 
of the Austrian and Spanish prisoners who had fallen into his 
hands by the chance of battle*. 

While he chastised us on the one hand, he read us a lecture 
on the other, — a sort of homily from pride and power to obse- 
quiousness and fear, — which should be ingrossed for the in- 
struction of our temporizing politicians, and hung on the wall 
of every public edifice in this country. We allude to tha 
memorable letter of the duke of Cadore on the subject of the 
confiscation of American property. Instead of being molli- 
fied by the soothing aspect and language of our administra- 
tion, and commiserating the perplexities into which they 
were thrown by the desire of keeping terms with himself, he 
treated them with that kind of poetical justice which he dis- 
played towards Prussia and every other continental state that 
connived at his usurpations, and crouched under his frowns. 
He upbraids them and this nation, in terms of the most over- 
whelming opprobrium and the most biting sarcasm, for the 
very policy which we had pursued only in our relations with 

* It is remarked in the letter of Champagny, of August izd, 1809, addressed 
to general Armstrong, e( that if the English had had on land that superiorly 
*' which they have obtained at s^a, we should have seen, as in the times of 
" barbarism, the vanquished sold as slaves, and their lands parcelled out."' 
Whoever reads this passage would do well to examine the French gazettes of 
about the same date, and those of the last six months, and he will find 
various" bulletins" from the prefects and municipal authorities of the French 
empire, inviting the peasantry and farmers to call for any number of the 
Austrian and Spanish prisoners that they might deem useful for their 
domestic and agricultural labours. This is, in fact, making slaves of the 
prisoners ; at least as long as they remain unexchanged, which will probably be 
the case with the Spaniards for some time. It is observed by Grotius, lib. 3, 
cap. 7, that this usage which the French have now renewed, was universally 
abolished among Chris dan nations. Bynkershoek repeats the same idea in his 
first chapter on the law of war (see the excellent translation of that work 
by Mr. Du Ponceau of this city) ; and Vattel remarks that " this opprobrium 
*< of humanity, the enslaving of prisoners, was happily banished fiom 
" Europe." 

" We admire," says this writer, " we love the English and French for the 
" manner in which these generous nations treat their prisoners of war." if 
he were now living, what would he say to the treatment of the Spanish and 
Austrian prisoners, and to the detention of the English found in France at the 
breaking out of the war ; or to which nation, in reviewing the transactions of 
the last eighteen years, would he affix the stigma of having substituted the 
usages of barbarism fcr those rules of eternal juslicf and .of refined humanity 
which he has so admiiably expounded ? 



i 



France and the United Slates. 



41 



nee — for an abject, cringing, improvident, fruitless for- 
earance under the grossest insults and injuries. He applies 
to this nation, and to those who administer her affairs, epithets 
of disgrace and contumely, such as no independent people or 
spirited government ever before received, and such as no 
government, perhaps, had ever before so well merited. 

The whole of this letter is but a compound of impudent 
falsehoods and degrading invective,— a bitter mockery in its 
professions of friendship, and an atrocious lampoon in its 
insinuations and taunts, The declaration with which it com- 
mences, that iC the imperial decrees would be conformable to 
" the eternal principles of justice, even, if they were not the 
<c necessary consequence of British provocations," is insulting 
and impudent in the highest degree.— The lesson which it in- 
culcates that 66 those who refuse to fight for honour may be 
" at length compelled to fight for interest/' is, in the applica- 
tion, no less insulting. The grounds upon which the confisca- 
tion of our property is vindicated, are frivolous and false. The 
following passages which cannot be too often quoted, speak too 
strongly for themselves to need a comment. ' e Men without 
<( policy, without honour and without energy, may well ai- 
" lege, that they will submit to pay the tribute imposed by 
<{ England because it is light; but will not the English feel 
" that they would rather have the principle admitted, than 
t' increase the tarif ? because if this tribute, though light, 
(< should become insupportable, those who had refused to 
" fight for honour must then fight for interest." What when 
compared to this were the letters of Philip to the Athenians, 
---or the sarcasms of Mr* Canning, about which we raised 
so great a clamour ? And what should be the feelings of 
every good citizen of this country, when he reads at the 
conclusion of the note from which we have taken these ex- 
tracts that it was written <c in order that the president of the 
" United States might better know the amicable intentions of 
" France, and her favourable disposition towards American 
r commerce,'* 

In one paragraph, a hollow panegyric is pronounced upon 
those who accomplished our revolution; only for the purpose 
of instituting an invidious comparison between their magna- 
nimity and our degenerate spirit. — Nothing but his eagerness 
to degrade and vilify this generation of American politicians, 
could have extorted from the mouth of Bonaparte a commen- 
dation upon the assertors of freedom of any age or country. 
But whatever may have been his motive for the eulogium, 
there is but too much colour for the reproach. We must 



42 



Past and present Relations of 



be indeed strangely altered since our revolution, or we never 
could have provoked from any power, however profligate or 
arrogant, such an address as this of Champagny. — A distant 
observer of these events would scarcely believe that we are 
the same race whom Mr. Burke describes in his speech on the 
conciliation of the colonies : — with whom, " the fierce spirit of 
" liberty is stronger than among any other people on earth; 
" whose institutions inspire them with lofty sentiments; — who 
ki do not judge of an ill principle only by an actual grievance, 
<s but who anticipate the evil and judge of the pressure of the 
<: grievance by the badness of the principle;— who snuff the 
" approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze." It could 
scarcely be credited that we, who have patiently endured the 
lash of this address of the duke of Cadore, and the robberies 
of his master, possess the soul of those stubborn colonists, so 
jealous of their rights,— -so full of spirit,— so full of resolu- 
tion, — so much alive to the purity of their honour, — who, 
with means apparently so inadequate, persevered and triumphed 
in a struggle like that of our revolution*? 

* We hold in the highest veneration the memory of those who swayed the 
councils and fought the battles of this country in the war of our independence. 
There was a loftiness of spirit about them as well as an energy of deliberation 
and of action, which never can be loo much admired or too warmly applauded. 
Theirs were 

H Virtues that shine the light of human kind, 

" And, rayed through story, warm remotest time.'^ 

We never think of them without enthusiasm, and without being ready to apply 
to them the beautiful and animated verses of Churchill on the subject of the 
fathers of English liberty. 

" Hail those old patriots on whose tongue. 
" Persuasion in the senate hung, 
'* Whilst they the sacred cause maintained : 
«* Hail those old chief's to honour trained, 
" Who spread when other methods failed, 
" War's bloody banner and prevailed ! " 

And, without calling on the despot of France for a commemoration of their merits, 
•vre would proceed to exclaim with the same poet, 

u Shall men like these unmentioned sleep 
, ** Promiscuous with the common heap, 

" And (gratitude forbid the crime) 
«« Be carried down the stream of time 
" In crowds, unnoticed and forgot 
" On Lethe's stream, like flags, to rot ? 
«• No — they shall live, and each fair name 
" Recorded in the book of fame, 
" Founded on honours basis, fast 
" As the round earth, to ages last" 



France and the Untied States. 



4 S 



The construction which we put upon this letter of the duke 
bf Cadore cannot be considered as the misrepresentation oi 
party spirit, since it is sanctioned by the authority of the go- 
vernment and of general Armstrong. On its first appearance, 
our administration seem to have been utterly confounded 
at so ungrateful a return for all their " friendly dispositions, ?■ 
and affected to doubt of its authenticity. When it was of- 
ficially announced to them, they either felt or found them- 
selves compelled to feign the sharpest resentment. The 
National Intelligencer no longer hesitated about the manner 
in which it was to be described. It was then said, that " the 
i( principles of this paper ivere such as we could never adopt 
" without disgrace, and the terms of it an outrage on dignity 
e 6 and decorum ; that the manner in which it was issued indi- 
" cited the determination of the French government to adhere to 
iC its doctrines — that the sine qua non of France respecting our 
u rights was a war with England/' &c. Such were the senti- 
ments of the government. 

The understanding of general Armstrong on this subject 
precludes all argumentation with regard to its merits. His re- 
ply, written in a style and with a spirit which do him honour, 
is an irresistible proof of the accuracy of our opinions concern- 
ing the feelings by which the French ruler is animated in our 
regard. It is alone sufficient to shake the faith of the most 
credulous of the believers in French amity, and should be 
read whenever the late amatory epistle of Bonaparte is perus- 
ed, as the key to its true meaning, and taken as a glossary,— 
as the rule of construction, for all the present or future pro- 
ceedings of the imperial cabinet in our regard. General Arm- 
strong understands that the people of this country are there 
said to be u destitute of policy, — of honour, and of energy;" — > 
(a most overwhelming charge indeed, and a sentiment very 
auspicious to our future relations with France !) " that we are 
accused of an abject submission to one power, and are there- 
fore fit subjects at any time for the lawless depredations of the 
other ; — that although one hundred of our vessels seized by 
forceand without intimation of their danger, were in the pos- 
session of France, still we were supposed to have no just 
ground of complaint. General Armstrong plainly insinuated 
that the emperor had asserted palpable falsehoods, and vamp- 
ed up miserable pretexts in order to disguise his rapacity ; 
and that his rules " were found for the occasion, and made 
(( to justify seizures not otherwise justifiable," &c. 

This letter of the duke of Cadore, in which, even ac- 
cording to the interpretation publicly given to it by our 



44 



Past and present Relations of 



cabinet and their minister at Paris, the character of this 
country is torn piecemeal, and our rights as well as our 
property for ever rendered insecure while within the reach 
of Bonaparte, would alone seem sufficient for the illustra- 
tion of this part of our subject. But there is another docu- 
ment in corroboration of our opinions which we are unwilling 
to overlook, and of which the real importance calls for an 
examination much more ample than our limits will allow. 
We speak of a letter on American politics under the signa- 
ture of Champagny addressed to an anonymous person, and 
published in the principal gazettes of Paris soon after the 
intelligence of Mr. Erskine's arrangement wilh our cabinet. 
It was first copied, during the last winter, into a New York 
newspaper, and was generally rejected as spurious ; although 
a person well acquainted with the state of the press in France, 
and who had attended minutely to the circuitous modes and 
to the particular strain of thought and expression in which 
the French government unfolds its views and opinions, could 
discover, at one glance, features which render its real origin 
quite unquestionable. 

Independently, however, of the authority of intrinsic evi- 
dence, we can undertake to assert from the most direct testi- 
mony that it was officially announced as genuine by general 
Armstrong, and supposed by him, (a supposition in which our 
iTOvernment concurred) to have been intended to prepare the 
French public either for an open declaration of war against this 
country or for the measures of actual hostility which were af- 
terwards adopted. 

The war of words has usually been, with the French ruler, 
the prelude to war of another sort. Before he proceeds to 
actual violence, he rarely fails to emplov either one or other 
of these two opposite expedients ; — the decoy of friendly pro- 
fessions in order to lull those whose destruction he meditates 
into a fatal security, or defamatory libels fraught with false 
accusations and contemptuous threats with the view either of 
alarming them into submission, or of entrapping the credulity 
of his own subjects and of his admirers abroad. The anodyne 
preparations usually issue directly from the imperial laboratory 
of venomous drugs, in the form of official notes. The threats 
and imprecations of the arch sorcerer are most frequently, — . 
although, as our own experience evinces, not uniformly— com- 
municated by the channel of newspaper paragraphs, and in the 
form of speculations on the politics of his intended victims. 

The immediate provocation to the manifesto now under 
consideration was the agreement made with Mr. Erskine ; by 



France and the United States. 



45 



which he imagined a reconciliation between this country and 
Great Britain to be irrevocably fixed. The circumstance of the 
agreement is, indeed, mentioned in the postscript as a piece of 
intelligence received after the letter itself was written; but 
this little ruse, which lord Bacon in his essays inculcates as 
proper in all cases where we wish to conceal the degree of 
sensibility excited in the mind by a particular object, is too 
stale and flimsy to impose upon any understanding;. 

We shali dwell for a moment on this letter of Champagnv 
because we hold it to be a most faithful exposition of the real 
sentiments of the imperial cabinet in our regard, and of the 
policy which we consider as fixed and unalterable with them, 
under whatever shape and in whatever language it may be 
couched. This letter contains a kind of digest of opinions con- 
cerning the political situation and views of the United States, 
which, although known to the French government to be 
utterly false, have nevertheless been frequently asserted, and 
will be often repeated for obvious purposes of hostility : such, 
for instance, as the idea that we only affect resentment against 
England in order to blind France ; — that the raising of the 
embargo was a masterpiece of British skill ; — 'that two thirds 
of American commerce are conducted upon British capital :— - 
that we are in a secret commercial league with the British, and 
play into their hands, &c. 

Besides this body of merely fictitious sentiments concerning 
our scheme of action, it contains a series of opinions with re- 
spect to our spirit and character which we, from our own per- 
sonal opportunities of information, and all persons who have 
attended diligently to the course of Bonaparte's proceedings, 
and to his general policy, know to be seriously entertained. 
They are as follows ;---that we have an insatiable thirst of gold; 
— that we are. as he has so unequivocally told us elsewhere, 
<s equally destitute of honour and energy," — that, in the pro- 
secution of our commercial schemes and for the advancement 
of our pecuniary interests, we are capable of the basest frauds 
and the meanest compliances ; — that what we contrive to pro- 
cure by 6C simulation," we dare not defend but by " prevari- 
<c cation and abject submission." It contains also many other 
doctrines which serve equally to elucidate the real views and 
dispositions of the writer — such, for example, as the very 
correct notion which Talleyrand inculcates in his celebrated 
memoir on the Commercial Relations of the United States ; 
that our habits, our sympathies, and our interests will lead us 
to prefer, at all times, British to French commodities ai^ 
British to French trade, 



46 Past and present Relations of 

The letter of Champagny asserts also that we are tolerated 
by France as neutrals and proceeds with the following re- 
markable propositions, of the truth of which the French 
ruler is fullv persuaded : — " that all maritime commerce, 
<c whether colonial or other, admitted or tolerated on the 
" continent, will always turn to the advantage of the British 
" and will furnish them with the means of resistance " — that 
the Americans, if licensed to trade, would become " the most 
" powerful auxiliaries of this dreaded commercial system ; 
" and that the veil under which they affect to disguise their 
" active co-operation, only gives it new energy— that it is the 
iC highest interests of France and her allies to defeat, by all 
" possible means, this odious connivance between the people 
" who call themselves the friends of France and her eternal 
c f enemies." — It is then significantly added " that it remains 
" to be known whether these happy combinations will not be 
" rendered useless by him who so well knows how to have his 
" orders executed : whether he will suffer all the countries 
" about France to be inundated with English goods, which 
w may be fraudulently introduced into his empire ? Whether 
" the frontiers of Germany or Switzerland will not be as 
" rigorously shut as those of Holland : — whether any of his 
" allies will not join in the total exclusion of a flag which has 
u become too suspicious : — whether precautions will not be 
u doubled, and carried to the greatest pitch of severity : — 
<c whether France must not learn definitively, to do without 
iC some factitious enjoyments, and thereby prevent one or two 
" millions of men from perishing as victims to English mo- 
" nopoly and American cupidity V 

After this long and painful detail, let us pause for a 
moment to revolve some of the considerations to which it 
naturally gives rise. The first questions which occur to the 
mind are these; whether if our administration had, as became 
the honour of the nation and their own dignity, resented with 
suitable spirit the first indignities of which they complained, 
they might not have averted the accumulated disgrace and 
calamities which ensued ; — whether, by waving an energetic 
demand for reparation and apology, and by continuing their 
negotiation of experiment and submission, they did not pursue 
that course which, while it degraded them and their country, 
tended rather to aggravate the insolence than to propitiate the 
favour of the individual with whom they had to deal ? It is a 
settled maxim in the intercourse of nations as well as in that 
of common life, that to notice without reseuting an insult is to 



France and the United States. 



47 



depart from the rules both of prudence and dignity. It is equally 
well-established by the experience of history and from the 
common operation of human passions, that a nation can never 
make a successful compromise with the pride, by submission 
to the insults, of a haughty conqueror. 

The justice which great states seek to obtain, will never be 
given as alms, or as the price of obsequiousness ; but can only 
be procured by maintaining an erect port ; — by commanding 
consideration,— -and enforcing respect. Our rulers should 
have known the character of Bonaparte better than to have 
sought security in humiliation ; or to have expected to in- 
gratiate themselves with this proud but sagacious tyrant, by 
temporizing arts or the policy of deprecation. It was not 
by placing themselves in a state of inferiority that they could 
rationally hope to promote the success of any claim of right ; 
but this was the sure mode of sealing, as it were, to their lips, 
the cup of bitterness which he afterwards forced them to drink 
to the dregs. The scurrilities which he heaped upon them,--- 
the losses which were entailed upon our merchants, and of 
which they may, in some degree, be considered as the cause, 
were but a just reward of a sacrifice of national dignity, for 
which there was no excuse, but in the suggestions of that kind 
of prudence to which Mr. Burke so properly affixes the epi- 
thets of false and reptile. They must have found but an in- 
different solace, and a still more unsatisfactory justification, 
in the known character of their assailant. They could not, and 
did not affect to despise or smile at his rirst outrages--" Con- 
" tempt," says Mr. Burke, " is not a thing to be despised. It 
" may be borne with a calm and equal mind; but no man lifting 
66 his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the 
<( scorns which are poured down on him from above." 

The foregoing investigation leads also to another reflection, 
in which we shall beg leave to indulge. By each of the 
belligerents, we are accused of partiality towards the other; 
and this imputation, when it proceeds from the British, is in- 
dignantly rejected by one description of persons in this 
country. — To what conclusion then on this subject are we 
irresistibly conducted by this review of our relations with 
France, when we call to mind at the same time the tenor of 
our past intercourse with England ? 

Let us suppose for a moment — what never can and what 
never could take place,--- that the latter, and not France, was 
the chief agent in this history of our degradation,-- -and had 
exhausted upon us, all the resources of violence, of contumely 
and of artifice,-— Let us suppose that she had issued, in the 



48 



Past and present Relations of 



first instance, and without the provocation of the Berlin de- 
cree, her orders in council, and bottomed them upon the 
innumerable, systematic violations of' neutral rights which 
the French were daily committing on the continent; or upon 
the much more solid foundation of state-necessity and the un- 
exampled, peculiar nature of the war in which she is engaged ; 
disguising, however, under these allegations, the real motive, 
— a desire of provoking such measures of retaliation on the 
part of her enemy as would plunge us into hostilities with 
the latter: that she had refused — until she discovered that h^r 
aim was not likely to be accomplished, — to give a full and 
formal explanation of the latitude in which she meant to en* 
force a decree studiously ambiguous in its terms; — that in 
the interval, she had cajoled our minister in London with a 
partial interpretation of her meaning from the hand of the 
first lord of the admiralty, and then impudently annulled it as 
extra-official, and substituted another in its stead, which, while 
it set at defiance all principles of national justice and swept 
away an existing and solemn treaty, operated as an ex post 
facto law of confiscation upon American property of con- 
siderable value which was wafied to her ports upon the 
security of the first interpretation ;---an interpretation which, 
as was universally known, could never have been written 
without the concurrence and express authority of the whole 
British cabinet. 

Let us suppose that our merchants had, in the course of a 
trade which she had never before prohibited or declared un- 
lawful, accumulated in her ports and in the ports of countries 
nominally independent of her, a large amount of property 
consisting in commodities the growth of the possessions of 
her enemies ; and that she had, concurrently with the promul- 
gation of her decrees, suddenly, treacherously and by the 
strong arm of military force, seized and confiscated all mer- 
chandise of this description " to whomsoever belonging " and 
wheresoever accessible to her power : — that she had uniformly 
turned a deaf ear to all our remonstrances on this subject, and 
had as yet made no reparation for this outrage; — that all hope 
of indemnification was ever abandoned by the sufferers.-— Let 
us suppose that she had burnt numbers of our vessels at sea, 
and had not even condescended to offer an explanation, much 
less restitution, for so lawless an outrage ; but had impri- 
soned for an indefinite period, and treated as malefactors and 
captives taken in war, not only the crews of the vessels thus 
destroyed but those of every American ship which, under the 
auspices of national law,---upon the pledged security of public 



Francs and the United States* 



49 



faith, and by actual invitation— -had unsuspectingly been 
placed within the sphere of her power. 

Let us suppose that, instead of offering a mere speculative 
proposition to enforce our non-intercourse laws by the cap- 
ture of American vesssels surprised in the violation of those 
laws, she had,— -upon this very pretext of punishing the 
disobedience of our own citizens to their own government,-^ 
actually laid violent hands upon the American vessels in her 
harbours and forfeited them to her treasury, and had, when 
called upon for an explanation of her conduct, insultingly and 
sneeringly offered to our cabinet the same pretext as the mo- 
tive and justification of her conduct *. 

Let us suppose that she had at length— by one sweeping 
decree of rapine — stripped us of every atom of our pro- 
perty which lay within her grasp 5— confiscated it to the 
amount of many millions of dollars, as a droit of the ad- 
miralty; — put a considerable portion of this amount " beyond 
" the reach of negotiation f by public sales and a transfer 
of the proceeds to her treasnry, and until this moment con- 
tinued to execute vigorously and insolently, this act of con- 
fiscation — and that this, the most comprehensive scheme of 
robbery which it was in her power to practise upon us, was 
adopted and carried into effect, suddenly and without the al- 
legation of any immediate provocation either real or ima- 
ginary; but upon pretences radically vicious in principle and 
notoriously false in point of fact ;-— upon the ground of acts 
which, after having been made the subject of eulogy, were 
then only for the first time converted into causes of com- 
plaint and motives to the severest vengeance : — upon the plea 
of injuries of which the existence did not appear to be sus- 
pected for many months ;— -an interval during which overtures 
of accommodation were made to this country, and a regular 
intercourse of diplomatic discussion maintained with its mi- 

* Extract of a letter from general Armstrong to the secretary of state, dated 
Paris, April 1808. 

" Orders were given on the 17th instant, and received yesterday at the impe'iai 
«« customhouses, * to seize all American vessels now in the ports of France or which 
«« ' may come into them hereafter.' " 

" Postscript. April 25th, 1808. — I have this moment received the following ex- 
" planation of the above-mentioned order, vis. that it directs the seizure of vessels 
" coming into ports of France after its own date, because no ve>sel of thj United 
" States can now navigate the seas, without infracting a law of the said States, and 
" thus furnishing a presumption that thev do so on British account, or in British con- 
" nexion.*' 

t See general Armstrong's letter on the subject of the confiscations at Naples. 

G 



50 



Past and present Relations of 



nister, by the very government which at length rose in its 

might to avenge these pretended wrongs. 

Let us again suppose, that instead of addressing us uni- 
formly in a language of that grave and respectful tone of 
solemn, elevated equality, which in the communion of two 
independent and friendly nations can never be abandoned 
without a derogation from the dignity of the one, and a 
violation of the rights of the other, — instead of distinguishing 
the representative of our government by the refined and politic 
courtesies which belong essentially to the constitution of every 
truly august and civilized court, and which, while they deco- 
rate the forms and ennoble the intercourse, serve to facilitate the 
true ends of diplomacy, — she had, in all her official notes and 
in her public declarations, employed towards us a language of 
arrogant superiority, of imperious dictation and of unwarrant- 
able interference in the functions of our private sovereignty, -- 
that she had treated our minister in London, as France treats 
all foreign ministers at Paris, like despicable, importunate duns 
sometimes scowled upon and ignominiously exiled from the 
audience-chamber of the imperial robber -.--sometimes caressed 
and cajoled as the purposes of meditated fraud, or projects of 
violence, or rancorous enmity might make it convenient : — 
that, while she continued to pursue her system of depredation 
upon our property, and when she had despoiled us of the last 
shilling within her reach, she not only advanced, in her official 
justification, abstract doctrines fundamentally subversive of 
all real or seeming equality between us, and destructive to our 
rights and interests ; but had employed against us such topics 
of abuse as could, with any shadow of justice or decency, be 
applied only to a nation that had, by the most abject, truckling 
policy, notoriously forfeited all pretensions to independence 
and consideration. 

Let us suppose that she had formally, and in terms, accused 
us of prostituting our honour to our pecuniary interests — of 
degenerating from the spirit and tarnishing the memory of 
those who shed their blood in our revolution ; — that she had 
compared our situation with that of Tuscany or of Holland 
when nominally independent, and had pronounced us to be 
still lower in the scale of humiliation ; still more subservient 
to the will of France, than either of those wretched and emas- 
culated states ; — that she had reviled us in the face of the 
world as a body of juggling poltroons and fraudulent smug- 
glers, intent alone upon the acquisition and indefatigable in the 
search of gain, but careless about the means by which it was 



France and the United States, 



51 



to be acquired -that she had finally left us no choice be- 
tween a most open, active, rancorous hostility on her part 
or a war with her enemy;— that she had made this the 
sine qua non, not of her cordial friendship, but even of the 
semblance of peace or amity between us — that she had de- 
clared it solemnly, and uniformly proved it to be her fixed 
unalterable policy to extinguish our trade as far as her power 
extended, unless we pursued the plan which she had chalked 
■out for us, and consented to enter into a league for the 
destruction of the only free constitution now remaining in the 
other hemisphere. 

If England, we ask, had done all this and more, what 
would have been the language of our government and the 
tone of the people ? It is impossible to assert that there is any 
thing exaggerated in this representation, as it rests upon the 
express authority of our administration, and of general Arm- 
strong*, and is supported throughout 1>y recent facts of un- 
questionable notoriety, and official documents of a tenour irre- 
sistibly clear and unequivocal. What banner would have been 
spread, — with what cry would we have been deafened, if all 
these accumulated insults and wrongs had proceeded from 
Great Britain ? Can any candid man assert, — does any intelli- 
gent man believe — that the effect would have been the same? 
Judging merely from the haughty tone of resentment which 

* The public has not forgotten, we trust, the following memorable passage 
from one of general Armstrong's letters to the secretary of state. 

" Nothing has occurred here since the date of my public dispatches (the 
" 17th) to give our business an aspect more favourable than it then had ; but on 
" the other hand 1 have come to the knowledge of two facts, which I think suf- 
" ficiently show the decided character of the emperor's polic}' with regard to us. 
" These are, first, — that in a council of administration held a few days past, 
" when it was proposed to modify the operation of the decrees of November 

1806, and December 1807 (though the proposition was supported by the 
" whole weight of the council) he became highly indignant, and declared 
" that these decrees should suffer no change — and that the Americans should be 
" compelled to take the positive character of either allies or enemies ; 2d, 
" that on the 27th of January last, twelve days after Mr. Champagny's 
" written assurances, that these decrees should work no change in the pro- 
a perty sequestered until our discussions with England were brought to a close, 
" and seven days before he reported to me verbally these very assurances, the 
** emperor had, by a special decision, confiscated two of our vessels and their 
" cargoes (the Junius Henry and Juniata) for want merely of a document, not 
" required by any law or usage of the commerce in which they had been en- 

gaged. This act was taken, as I am informed, on a general report of sequestered 
" cases, amounting to one hundred and sixty, and which, at present prices, will 
** yield upwards of one hundred millions of franks, a sum whose magnitude alone 
41 renders hopeless all attempts at saving it — Danes, Portuguese and Americans, 
*' will be the principal sufferers. — Jf I am right in supposing the emperor has de- 
" fiuitively taken his ground, 1 cannot be wrong in concluding that you will imme- 
u diately take yours." 



52 Past and present Relations of 

our administration have uniformly employed towards England 
upon every real or imaginary aggression : — from the bitterness 
and steadiness of their complaints; — from the quick, lively 
sensibility which has always been displayed to injuries coming 
from that quarter, — from the cry for war which was vociferated 
from one end of the United States to the other on the occasion 
of the attack of the Chesapeake, and in which all parties con- 
curred ; we should not hesitate to conclude that, upon the 
foregoing hypothesis, notwithstanding prudential considera- 
tions of a nature infinitely more urgent and imperious than 
those which dissuade us from a contest with France, and be- 
fore we had endured one half of this long category of wrongs, 
we should have let loose all the reins to our wrath, and that 
our administration would have sounded the charge and in* 
dignantly pointed the way to the most active and vindictive 
hostilities which it might have been in our power to wage. — -In 
the case of France, however, the murmurs of the executive 
were scarcely heard until her last attacks, when the provoca- 
tions were such as no human patience could silently endure, 
and no government, however pusillanimous, decently forbear to 
resent. Even then the accent was ouerulous : not spirited ; — » 
not manly ; and, in fact, all the complaints which have been 
at any time uttered against France by our cabinet, have been 
as it were studiously coupled with and drowned in still louder 
intonations against the other belligerent. 

It would not therefore be surprising, if any English minis- 
try, or we, who are neither heated by the passions nor warped 
by the prejudices of any party, should, upon this view of the 
case, think that there are to be found in the conduct of our 
administration, unerring, staring indications of partiality for 
France, and a decided predilection for her alliance. We confess 
that we cannot discern in this state of things that strict, con- 
scientious, disinterested neutrality to which we so osten- 
tatiously lay claim, and upon which we found our pretensions 
to the most circumspect indulgent moderation, and to an in- 
jurious self-denial on the part of a nation which is now, with 
her " At tantean shoulders vast," laboriously supporting the 
cause of freedom and of civilization. True neutrality has 
another character and other attributes. 

The ancients in their Iconology, represent Justice with a 
bandage over the eyes,--- with a sword in one hand,-— with the 
well -poised sc ales in the other, — with a sun upon her breast 
as the emblem of purity,-- -with a serene, but courageous 
aspect, — with the volumes of jurisprudence heaped about her 
as the rule of her decisions J— with the horn of Amaltheus by 



France and the United States, 



53 



her side as the symbol of that prosperity which must crown 
the career of every state of which she and " warlike Honour " 
guide the helm. If we were disposed to indulge m a personi- 
fication of Neutrality, just such would we pourtray her : — not 
panic-struck and overawed by the grim aspect of war or of ty- 
ranny ; — not trampling upon the sword and the balance and 
grasping the caduceus and the purse ; — not surrounded by 
volumes of impracticable theories and spurious codes of pub- 
lic law, instead of that body of immemorial customs and those 
profound digests of universal legislation which, by the com- 
mon consent of mankind, were heretofore consecrated as the 
only safe guides of action, and the only pure sources of illumi- 
nation. Neutrality may indeed exist, where Justice is notori- 
ously with one belligerent; and it is therefore that we should 
place in her train, a figure which Justice can never have as a 
companion. We mean Prudence in our sense of the term, with 
Honour as her guide and her counsellor : but then we would 
alter the aspect of our image, and instead of the placid coun- 
tenance, we would give her what was frequently assigned to 
Justice, — a severe and sorrowful physiognomy ; eyes full of 
fierceness and indignation against the oppressor; and, — if we 
could go farther and animate her heart, — it should be the op- 
posite of her exterior character and should glow with anxious 
hopes and ardent wishes for the cause of the oppressed. 



We shall now, after some digressions, which will not, we 
trust, appear tedious to those who comprehend the scope 
of this investigation, proceed to analyze the late correspon- 
dence of the French minister of foreign affairs with general 
Armstrong; a question which will naturally lead us to a con- 
sideration of our future prospects with regard to France. We 
enter upon this part of our subject with a postulate of the 
utmost importance to the elucidation of the true spirit of her 
late proceedings, and which should be kept in view to aid the 
solution of any seeming difficulties connected with this sub- 
ject. The general conclusion to be drawn from the preceding 
pages and the ground upon which we mean to take our stand 
is — that Bonaparte, until the period when he thought proper 
to announce the conditional revocation of the Milan and Berlin 
decrees, was, as far as human language and conduct can enable 
us to judge of human feelings, animated with sentiments of 
sovereign contempt and virulent animosity towards the United 
States. , 



I 



5 A Past and present 'Relations of 

We think we have established this point beyond the 
possibility of a doubt, and are supported in it by testimony, 
the validitv of which no partizan of our administration at 
least will venture to deny. ---Under the auspices of this con- 
clusion we shall premise three maxims suggested by Mr. 
Burke, in his M Regicide Peace," of which the application is 
obvious and which when our countrymen are disposed to 
indulge in visionary hopes with regard to the sincerity of the 
professions of Bonaparte, it would be well for them to call to 
mind-— 1st, That a disposition to peace and amity is the only 
sure basis for any pacific or amicable arrangement. — 2d, That 
if we have reason to conceive that our enemy, who as such must 
have an interest in our destruction, is also a person of discern- 
ment and sagacity, we may be quite sure that the object he 
pursues is the very thing by which our ruin is likely to be 
most perfectly accomplished. — 3d, That an adversary must 
be judged not by what we ourselves are, or what we wish him 
to be, but by what we must know he actually is; unless we 
choose to shut our eyes and ears to the uniform tenor of all 
his discourses, and to his uniform course in all his actions. 

At a period when Bonaparte seemed to have discarded 
even the affectation of forbearance towards this country, and 
had excited absolute despair in the minds of his blind wor- 
shippers here, general Armstrong was greeted with a letter 
from the French minister of foreign affairs in which a com- 
plete revolution both of policy and feeling in our regard was 
announced, and an invitation tendered to our merchants to 
commit their property once more to the justice or the mercy 
of the French ruler. The change was no less wonderful than 
unexpected to common apprehensions. Some even of our most 
sagacious and incredulous politicians, forgetful, as it appears 
to us, of the first maxims of common prudence and inattentive 
to the contemporaneous language and deportment as well as to 
the previous dispositions and acts of Bonaparte, have sought 
for solutions to the fancied enigmas of his letter in motives 
of interest which imply the sincerity of his present declara- 
tions. We hope to dissipate this strange illusion by assigning 
adequate causes for his present conduct, derived from his 
hostility to us, and to commerce in general; or if we admit 
motives of interest extraneous to these feelings, we hope to 
convince our readers that they can be but merely temporary 
in their operation. 

We have asserted in the outset of this discussion, that 
the letter of Cadore was a tissue of glaring falsehoods, and of 
bitter sarcasms, and we are confident of being able, from an 



France and the United States. 



55 



examination of the text, not only to support this opinion, but 
to prove, at the same time, from the conditions which Bona- 
parte has annexed to the revocation of his decrees, that he 
himself must have foreseen the utter futility, as far as regards 
the interests of trade, of this new stroke of policy, if we 
allow him to possess any knowledge of the fundamental, un- 
changeable politics of the British cabinet. — We ourselves are 
confident that this pretended effort in favour of commerce, 
and these ludicrous professions of amity towards the United 
States will either soon evaporate in mere empty speculation, 
or entail consequences, not advantageous, but in the highest 
degree prejudicial to our best interests. In any event this in- 
vestigation will be useful, and when the determination of 
time shall supersede all conjecture, it will still be important 
as an illustration of the genius of the French government and 
an additional lesson of caution to this country. 

The letter of the French minister of foreign relations com- 
mences by a declaration, of the falsehood of which every 
man who reads it must be at once sensible. It implies " that 
" his imperial majesty had then only (the 5th of August) been 
" apprised of the act of congress of the 1st of May, and that 
i: most of our official acts had been tardily communicated to 
" him: a circumstance from which there resulted serious in- 
" conveniences that would have leen obviated ly a prompt 
" and official communication* We cannot consent to believe 
that the French government remained ignorant for the space 
of three months of a measure, which within six weeks after it 
took place was announced in all the gazettes of Paris and no- 
tified by the arrival of our vessels in the ports of France 
within that period, and which if it had not been so announced 
must have been collected from the English newspapers which 
are regularly received at the French office of foreign affairs f. 
—We cannot believe that general Turreau was so negligent 

* Lettre du ministre des relations exterieures, a M; Armstrong, 

Paris, le 5 AouCl8lO. 

Monsieur, 

J'ai mis sous les yeux de S. M. PEmpereur et Roi Pacte du congres d.i 
l er Mai, extrait de la Gazette des Etats Unis, que vous m'avez fait passer. 
S. M. aurait deYire que cet acte et tous les autres actes du gouvernement des 
Etats Unis qui peuvent interesser la France," lui eussent toujours el6 notifies 
otliciellenient. En general, elle n'en a eu connaissance qu'indirectement et 
& pies un long interval le de temps. II resulte de ce retard des inconvtniens 
graves qui n'auraient pas lieu, si ces actes ctaient promptement et officicllement com- 
muniques. 

t VVe have in our hands a Moniteur of the 24th of June, which contains a trans^ 
iaiion of the act of the first of May. 



56 Past and present Relations of 



of his duty as to omit to communicate instantaneously to his 
government a measure of so much importance in itself and 
upon which his master now affects to lay so much stress. 

It was incumbent not upon general Armstrong, but upon the 
French ambassador, to make this notification, inasmuch as 
the act of the first of May was not of a nature to be made the 
ground of an application from us to the French government 
for a change in its policy. A foreign minister is bound by no 
law either of reason or usage, to communicate formally and 
officially to the power near whom he may be placed, such of 
the public measures of his own government as are not of a 
character to serve as the foundation of a demand, or likely to 
operate as an inducement for a change of attitude. But it falls 
within the province and is part of the trust of a minister to 
communicate, without delay, to the power whose representative 
he is, whatever public acts may come within his knowledge 
which are of a tendency to affect its interests or to regulate 
its policy. i 

That understanding must be weak indeed which can be so 
far influenced by the authority or persuaded by the rhetoric 
of the French minister of foreign affairs as to credit the mira- 
culous effect ascribed to the act of the first of May. The 
assertion that it produced the revocation of the Berlin and 
Milan decrees is ludicrous when we consider all the circum- 
stances of the case. This statement is directly in the teeth of 
a fact notorious to all the world ; — that as early as April 1 809, 
the very measure or scheme of policy adopted in the act of 
the first of May was proposed to the French government a9 
an inducement to the revocation of the Milan and Berlin 
decrees. From that period until the moment when congress 
issued the act, this proposition was still held out to France, 
and answered uniformly by a declaration from the latter, that 
no such revocation could take place, until the English first 
rescinded their orders in council as well as their principles of 
blockade. If then the present revocation be unconditional, as 
we are told, how can we admit that it was produced on the 5th 
of August by a measure which, although constantly and long 
before proffered to the French government failed in producing 
any effect ? We cannot suppose that the mere incorporation of 
this particular scheme of policy under the form of an act of 
congress could have given it this unexpected and novel efficacy. 
If the revocation be conditional — as it most unquestionably 
is,— if it have the same qualifications as were before declared 
to be inseparable from it, — we are placed by this letter of the 



France and the United States. 



57 



duke of Cadore in a situation^ not indeed exactly the same as 
before but much worse as we shall presently show. 

The French minister, in alleging the act of the first of May 
as the motive to the revocation of the decrees of Bonaparte, 
involves himself in a gross contradiction. The embargo was 
long since warmly commended by the emperor,--- and is, here, 
again declared to have been acceptable to him. Yet we are told 
that the removal of all restrictions ort our trade, — for such was 
the effect of the abrogation of the non-intercourse act---waS so 
satisfactory to him as to induce a change in his policy, which 
the embargo itself and all our other measures of real hostility 
against England, were insufficient to extort. It cannot be said 
that the engagements into which congress entered concerning 
the revival of the non-intercourse, could have rendered the 
abrogation of it so wonderfully operative : since, as has been 
above stated, we had long before professed our readiness to 
give the same pledges, and always without avail. If the em- 
bargo was grateful to the French emperor, a fact of which 
there can be no doubt, — it is quite incomprehensible how the 
very opposite course of policy — under the same circum- 
stances as to the position of neutral trade, and with the same 
dispositions on our part, — could have consummated the work 
of propitiation. The removal of the non-intercourse was here 
considered as a triumph obtained over the partizans of France; 
—as the deathblow of a system adopted and pursued in con- 
formity to her will, — and therefore as fitted to exasperate the 
resentment of the French emperor. We are quite sure that 
this was the light in which it was viewed by our administra- 
tion; and the tardiness with which it was 'communicated to 
the government of France arose perhaps both on the part of 
general Armstrong and of our executive from that reluctance 
which men in all situations feel to communicate unpleasant 
information to One whose power is dreaded and whose temper 
is irritable. 

The Berlin decree was issued before our embargo was im- 
posed that of Milan before it could have been known in 
Europe that we had adopted this preposterous measure. 
Neither of these decrees had any the most distant connexion 
with our embargo and non-intercourse laws. They were 
correlative in point of time, of principle, and of profession, 
with the British blockades and orders in council. They were 
repeatedly and solemnly declared to depend solely on one of 
these two contingencies, — the cessation of the provocation on 
the part of the British, or an open rupture between us and 
Great Britain, -—All connexion between the imperial decrees 



5S 



Vast and present Relations of 



and our measures was disclaimed but this, and a most im- 
portant one it is; — that they were to cease to operate upon us 
when we began to resist by force the pretended aggressions of 
England on neutral rights. Nothing could have been more 
foreign to this the only relation which was admitted to exist 
between them, than the removal of the non-intercourse \ — a 
measure which has been here so justly branded by all parties 
as the submission act. — And yet we are told that in conse- 
quence of " the new state of things" which that removal has 
produced, the imperial decrees are revoked 1 

In order therefore to preserve even the shadow of con- 
sistency, the French government must mean by this " new 
(( state of things" — an engagement on our part to make war 
on England in case she should not abandon leth her orders in 
council and her alleged principles of blockade. — We shall pre- 
sently show that Bonaparte has actually declared this to be 
his meaning. Nor can France, without a most direct contra- 
diction of her declarations contained even in the letter now 
under examination, consider a mere non-intercourse with 
England as tantamount to a redemption of our pledge. She 
well knows that such a state of things is far from being in- 
jurious to Great Britain, or in any manner an assertion of 
our neutral rights. — She has positively declared it to be a state 
of things highly injurious to herself. If France wishes to 
preserve even the semblance of dignity or consistency, she 
must consider this revocation as subject to the condition of 
the repeal both of the British orders and of their principles 
of blockade, which as we have said, she has so often and so 
solemnly'pronounced to have been the sole inducements to her 
decrees*. 

The letter of the duke of Cadore proceeds to state that our 
embargo had occasioned the loss of the French colonies of 
Guadaloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne, — an assertion alto- 
gether false, but which it does not comport with our limits to 
refute circumstantially. — Nor do we think it necessary to 

* " The present decree shall be considered as the fundamental laio of the 
" empire until England has acknowledged that the rights of war are the same 
" at sea as on land ; that war cannot be extended to any private property 
" whatever, nor to persons who are not military, and until the right of blockade be 
" restrained to fortified places actually invested by competent force." 

Preamble to Berlin decree. 

And again in the body of the Milan decree it is declared " that the measures 
" of France shall continue to be rigorously in force as long as the British govern- 
" ment does not return to the principles of the laws of nations." The same 
pledges are given in all the public documents of France which have any relation to 
either of the decrees. 



France and the United States. 



59 



dwell upon the statement which immediately follows con- 
cerning the motives by which our government was actuated 
in imposing the embargo ; — a position no less true than the 
preceding one is false. The correspondence between the se- 
cretary of state and general Armstrong as well as many of 
the communications of the latter to the French minister, 
prove it to have been the intention of our Executive to im- 
press upon the mind of the French emperor the idea — that 
the leading if not the sole motive of the embargo was the an- 
noyance of England. — Conformably to his knowledge of the 
fact, derived from this and other sources, he has in several 
of his public addresses ascribed our embargo to the same 
spirit which dictated his " continental system" and now re- 
peats this idea in the letter of the duke of Cadore*. This 
assertion however well-founded, is repugnant to the lan- 
guage which our administration has thought proper to em- 
ploy in all their official statements at home, and in their cor- 
respondence with the British ministry. It is therefore to be 
viewed as a direct contradiction to their formal declarations; 
and the repetition of it is grossly insulting. — But we have not 
heard that general Armstrong has been instructed to protest 
against the reiterated imputation of motives so formally de- 
nied by his principals, or that the same indignation has been 
expressed on this occasion as was manifested when Mr. Can- 
ning indulged in a mere insinuation to the same effect. 

The next paragraph of the letter is of a curious import, and 
inculcates lessons of prudence from which no small benefit 
might be derived if we were governed by men who moved 
under the direction of reason and experience, and not under 
the discipline of their prejudices and their fears. The very 
circumstance which was attached to the non-intercourse act 
with a view, as it has been said, to accomodate his Imperial 
majesty is here stigmatized as the object of his particular re- 
probation; we mean the exception of Spain, Naples and 
Holland from the operation of that act. ---In the whole history 
of our administration, there is perhaps, no trait more disgust- 
ing or degrading than this .affair, in which, with matchless 

* " L'Empereur avait applaudi a l'embargo general, mis par les Etats Unis 
" sur tous leurs batimens, parce que cette mesure, si elle a 6le prejudiciable a. la 
" France n'avait au moins rien d'oftensant povir son honneur. Elle lui a fait 
" perdre ses colonies de la Guadaloupe, de la Martinique et de Cayenne. L'Em- 
" pereur ne s'en est pas plaint. II a fait ce sacrifice au principe qui avait 
" determine" les Americains a l'embargo, en leur inspirant la noble resolution dc 
14 s'interdire les mers, plutot que de se soumettre aux lois de ceux qui veuleut s'en 
u faire les donrinateurs." 



60 



Past and present Relations of 



effrontery and in opposition to the evidence of their very 
senses, they affected to consider those countries as sovereign 
and independent. This declaration was received here and m 
England particularly, where we witnessed its effects upon the 
party most friendly to this nation, with lively feelings of con- 
tempt and indignation. It met with the reward that the spirit 
from which it sprung so well deserved, and rarely fails to re- 
ceive. The British minister flung it from him with disdain, 
and reproached our rulers with the disingenuousness of the 
proceeding. Bonaparte now visits this sin upon them still 
more severely He ostentatiously and purposely falsifies their 
declaration by affirming those countries to be under French 
influence. He implies most unequivocally that the fact was 
known to them at the time when they promulgated a law pro- 
voked, as they declared, in some degree by the outrages of 
France, but from the inconveniences of which they yet thought 
proper to exempt those countries. He offers this circumstance 
together with the confiscation with which we threatened French 
vessels that should enter our ports, as his justification for the 
seizure of all American property within the reach of his 
powtr*. It is notorious, that we confiscated no French ves- 
sels, and no less certain that the established privileges of ter- 
ritorial sovereignty, entitled us to refuse admittance into our 
harbours to the vessels of any nation. 

This prerogative of municipal jurisdiction, for the exercise 
of which the French emperor has chastised us by the confis^ 
cation of so many millions of property, is the very ground 
upon which his zealous admirers in this country vindicated 
the Berlin decree. He seems to take a malicious satisfaction 
in refuting all the arguments which we so ingeniously and 
kindly urge in defence of his measures, and in scourging us 
himself for every act of compliance into which we are betrayed 
by our eagerness to conciliate his favour. How either of the 
acts of which he here complains could have been offensive 
to the dignity of France we do not understand ; but we sup- 

* " L'a~te da crtrnler Mars a lev6 l'embargo, et l'a reraplac6 par une raesure 
«' qui deWt nuire iurlout aux interests de la France. Cct acre que l'Erapereur 
*« na bien connu que i:es-iard, interdisait aux b&timens AraeYicains Je commerce 
« de la France, dans le terns qu'il l'autorisait pour l'Espagne, Naples et la Hollande, 
" c'est-a-dire, your les pays sous I' influence Frangaise, et prononcait la con- 
<" fiscation contra les batimens Francais qui entreraient dans les ports d'A- 
■« raerique. 

" La i3pr6sai]le etait de droit et command6e par la dignite de la France, circon- 
« s stance suv hquelle i! etait impossible de transiger. Le seqtiestre de tous les 
?« batimens Americans en France a et6 la suite necessaire de la mesure prise par le, 

<" congres," 



France and the United States, 



61 



pose that this phrase was introduced in order to afford an 
opportunity for the just but sarcastic lesson which follows ;— r 
namely, that " dignity is a point which admits of no compro- 
(e mise." Fortunate would it have been for us and for our 
administration themselves if they had comprehended sooner 
the truth and efficacy of this doctrine, or if they could feel the 
sting of the insolent and malignant application which is in- 
tended in this instance, and has been always intended, when- 
ever similar propositions have been directed to them from the 
same quarter. — But " these watchmen are blind °, — they are 
" shepherds who do not understand *.'* 

Never was the word, dignity, more grossly prostituted 
than in the mouth of a power which could issue a state paper 
such as that which we have now under examination. — The 
falsehood and prevarication with which it abounds are suffir 
cient to show what portion of real dignity is inherent in the 
French government. But the use of the term, besides con- 
veying an important hint, has moreover something ominous 
with regard to our future relations with France. If an act of 
mere territorial sovereignty and an exception from a public 
law, designedly made, as it has been asserted, to favour and 
gratify the French government, or (to admit the doctrine of 
Mr. Gallatin) intended as an indulgence to nations which we 
supposed to be independent, and from which we had received 
no injury, — were deemed so offensive to the dignity of France 
as to render necessary so tremendous a retaliation, what line 
of conduct can we pursue that may not be construed into a 
violation of that dignity , and held sufficient to authorize any 
act of violence ? If we take this instance as an illustration of 
the sense which France entertains of her dignity, by what 
Standard does she rate it, or with what security could we 
adopt any public measure in her regard ? " It is impossible," 
gays Mr. Burke, speaking of the use of this term by the 
French directory — <f to guess what acquisitions pride and 
" ambition may think fit for their dignity," So, — in this 
case, — it is utterly impossible to conjecture what definition 
pride and ambition and rapine and fraud may choose to give of 
their dignity, or what disposition of mind on our part they 
may consider as reconcilable with their honour. 

The considerations which arise out of the succeeding pas- 
sages of this letter are of much greater moment than any thing 
which we have as yet suggested. We come now to the terms 
upon which the Berlin and Milan decrees are revoked. \Ve 



Isaiah. 



62 



Past and present Relations of 



must confess that we have never encountered any conditions 
more unequivocal than those which are attached to this revo- 
cation, when we connect with the text, by an indispensable law 
of construction, all the circumstances and declarations which 
belong to the case. 

It is notorious that the Berlin and Milan decrees were 
declared by France to have been issued in consequence of the 
British blockades and orders in council, and not in reference 
to any measures of this country. It is notorious that the 
French government has repeatedly and solemnly pronounced 
that its decrees should never be revoked, until the induce- 
ments to them on the side of the British were removed — or 
until we compelled the latter to admit a code of neutral rights 
comprising pretensions that we ourselves disclaim, and such 
as the British will never allow as long as their power shall 
endure. — It is notorious that by the phrase, " causing our 
<c rights to be respected, " — the French government means-— 
the exercise of force on our part against Great Britain to 
effect this purpose; — an actual league with France in the war 
in which she is engaged. 

The very men to whom the letter in question is addressed 
have declared this to be the meaning of the French emperor. 
They have heretofore uniformly understood him in this sense, 
and pronounced an alliance with France to be the sine qua nun 
of his amity. He has frequently signified his willingness to 
rescind his decrees, provided we would consent " to unite 
" with the powers of the continent in their warfare against 
" British trade/* — a warfare which in the case of all those 
powers involved hostilities of every kind. — They have been 
told repeatedly that short of this concession nothing could be 
available for us. — We think, moreover, that we have made it 
sufficiently apparent that the French ruler cannot, without re- 
tracting declarations as solemn and as ostentatious as any 
which he ever made, — without affording a complete triumph 
to his enemies, and without falling into the grossest incon- 
sistencies before the whole world, consider his decrees as 
extinct, until the British shall have revoked not only their 
orders in council, but their principles of blockade, — or until 
we have engaged in an actual war with Great Britain. — It is 
known to us all, that the mere prohibition of trade with the 
latter would, if our ships were permitted to sail for any 
other part of Europe, prove only injurious to ourselves, and 
we must be satisfied that Bonaparte is fully apprised of this 
consequence, 



France and the United Stater. 



63. 



With these facts before us, let us proceed to examine the- 
text of the pretended revocation of his decrees, and see 
whether it can, by any possibility, admit of more than one in- 
terpretation. u A new state of things," we are told, had de- 
termined the emperor to change his attitude with regard to 
this country. " This new state of things" is thus described. 
*? At present congress retraces its steps. The act of the first 
<e of March is revoked. The ports of America are open to 
" French trade ; and France is no longer shut to Americans. 
€( Congress, in short, engages to declare against (s'elever 
" contre) the belligerent power which shall refuse to recog- 
" nise the rights of neutrals 

Here there is an enumeration of circumstances consti- 
tuting " this new state of things "---and of which the pre- 
tended engagement of congress is undoubtedly the most ma- 
terial. It follows of course that the emperor will hold himself 
entitled to withdraw his concessions, if he should find that this 
circumstance — the leading inducement to his present con- 
duct — did not exist conformably to his supposition. Can we 
hesitate about the sense in which he understands this en- 
gagement " to declare against," &c, or about the .nature of 
the immunities which he includes within the phrase neutral 
rights P Is not the phraseology declare against, perfectly un- 
ambiguous in itself? and has he not— -as may be seen by the 
confession of our executive, — made the signification which 
he attaches to it fully intelligible to us all ? There is no rule 
of construction or of common sense which will warrant us in 
looking to the text or scope of our own act of the first of May 
for an elucidation of his meaning when he has himself ex- 
pounded it so absolutely and specifically. He tells us that 
we have entered into <c a certain engagement," not desig- 
nating clearly how, but, — as it is to be inferred from the 
context only — alluding to the act of the first of May. Upon 
that act he puts a general construction of his own, and pur- 
posely omits to quote the passage of it, or even to specify the 
act itself from which he deduces an engagement, — in order 
that hereafter when it may be convenient for him to recal his 
pretended concessions, the terms of this act may not, after 
its fulfilment, be objected, as susceptible of no other than a 
very limited interpretation. The act of May stipulates, as it 

* 14 Aujourd'hul le congres revient sur ses pas. II reVoque I'acte du lcr 
** Mars. Les ports de l'Amerique sont ouverts au commerce Francais, et la France 
*' n'est plus interdite aux Ainerieains. Enfin le tongres prend l'engageruent de 
*» s'elever contre celle des puissances belligerantes qui reiuserait de reconnaiue les 
* droits des neutres." 



Past and present Relations of 



were, merely for the revival of the non-intercourse against the 
power which shall not revoke her decrees ; — and can any in- 
telligent person believe that Bonaparte means nothing more 
by an engagement to declare against that power P Will he 
consent to admit that he was prompted to an abandonment of 
that which he has so often declared to be his fundamental and 
unalterable policy, merely by the promise or pledge of the 
revival of the non-intercourse ;--a measure which, as he knows, 
would be but little injurious to Great Britain, and which in the 
letter of Champagny, examined in page 43 of this discussion, 
he stigmatizes as a mere fraud upon France ? 

We now come to the revocation.--- ' c In this new state of 
u things," says the French minister to general Armstrong, 
K I am authorised to declare to you, sir, that the decrees of 
" Berlin and Milan are revoked." — Even if the phrase had 
ended here we should not have been entitled to consider the 
revocation as absolute, or to rely upon the continuance of the 
system of lenity which it implies ; since that system, as we 
have seen above, is expressly stated to have been induced 
solelv bv the belief, and to be founded on the supposition, 
that we had contracted certain obligations which, we trusty 
the event will prove never to have entered into our scheme of 
action. But this part of the phrase is rendered mere sur- 
plusage by what follows, and is inseparably connected. It 
proceeds thus: " and that from the first of November they 
w shall cease to be executed, it being well Understood that, 
" in consequence of this declaration, the English shall revoke 
u their orders in council and renounce the new principles of 
" blockade which they have attempted to establish, or that the 
" United States, conformably to the act which you have just 
<( communicated, shall cause their rights to be respected by 
(( the British — We must confess that we are at a loss to 
understand how there can be a doubt entertained with regard 
to the sense of this passage, by those who will read attentively 
the considerations with which we have prefaced our examina- 
tion of the text of this letter. 

The nature of this revocation must be palpable to one who 
has in his mind the uniform declarations of the French em- 

* ** Dans ce nouvel etat de chases, je. suis autorise a vous declarer, Monsieur, 
" que les decrets de Berlin et de Milan sunt revoques, et qu'a dater du ler 
" Novembre, ils cesseront d'avoir leur elfet, bien entendu qu'en consequence de 
" cette declaration, les Anglais rtvoqueront leurs arrets du comeil et renonceroni aux 
" nouveaux principes de btocus qu'ils ont voulu etablir, ou bien que les Etats-Unis, 
" conformement a Cacte que vous venez de communique)', feront respecter leurs droits 
" par les Anglais." 



France and the United States. 65 



peror on the subject of these decrees, and of our relations with 
Great Britain. It is not for our rulers to garble this passage 
conformably to the direction of their wishes,-— to admit only 
the first part which implies an absolute revocation, and to re- 
ject the qualifications which the writer has annexed so formally 
and in terms so explicit. In collecting the sense of this passage, 
and determining the course of action to which it may lead, 
they are bound by every rule of judgment and self-interest, to 
give full weight to the parts of it which are indivisibly united ; 
•j — such as the terms " lien entendu que 3 " " new principles of 
blockade," and neutral rights — and to interpret the latter not 
only according to the common acceptation of the terms but 
in the sense in which they know them to be understood by the 
French government. We have now before us the original of 
this letter of Cadore, and we do not know in the French 
language-— in which we profess to be tolerably well versed,- — 
a single phrase that could more emphatically imply a condi- 
tion than the one here employed — lien entendu que, — it being 
well understood that, &c. — On this point there can be no dif- 
ference of opinion. 

The first contingency upon which the revocation hangs is, 
that the English shall renounce not merely their orders in 
council but their new principles of blockade. The proposition 
is conjunctive. It then becomes a natural and necessary in- 
quiry to ascertain what is meant by these new principles 
of blockade without the relinquishment of which this revoca- 
tion is not to become absolute. We have, fortunately, from 
Bonaparte himself, a full exposition of his doctrine on the 
subject of lawful blockade. In a letter which we have already 
cited, addressed to general Armstrong, he proscribes all kinds 
of blockade as unlawful except the close investiture of a port 
destined as a co-operation with a besieging army on land *. All 
other forms of blockade are declared to involve new principles^ 

* The letter of August 22d, 1809. The text is as follows—" The light, or rather 
the pretension, of blockading by a proclamation, rivers and coasts, is as monstrous 
f (revoltante) as it is absurd. A place is not truly blockaded until it is invested 
" by land and sea: it is blockaded to prevent its receiving the succours which 
" might retard its surrender. It is only then that the right of preventing neutral 
" vessels from entering it, exists — for the place so attacked is in danger of being 
*' taken and the dominion of it is doubtful," See. — This is one of those "invariable 
" principles" which, according to the first paragraph in this letter " have regulated 
" and will regulate the conduct of his imperial majesty on the great question of 
" neutrals." One of the topics of accusation employed against England in the 
preamble to the Berlin decree is the following — " That she extends to ports not 
" fortified, to harbours and to mouths of rivers, the right of blockade, which according 
" to reason and the usage of civilized nations is applicable only to strong or fortified 
" ports." 



66 



Past and present Relations of 



and the English are accused of introducing, and of tyrannic 
cally enforcing them by means of their supremacy at sea. As 
an exemplification of the new principles — the case of the 
blockade from the Elbe to Brest has been frequently cited by 
the French government. General Armstrong informs us in 
one of his dispatches to the secretary of state that on in- 
quiring officially on what terms his imperial majesty would 
consent to revoke his decrees, he received for answer, w that 
ec the condition required by his majesty for the revocation of 
<e his Berlin decree was the previous revocation by the British 
iC government of her blockades of France or part of France 
" (such as that from the Elbe to Brest," &c.) 

We cannot suppose Bonaparte so egregiously ignorant of 
the character and cardinal policy of the British government as 
to have imagined that they would at any period renounce those 
principles which he stigmatizes as new — but which they de- 
clare to be a part of the immemorial law of nations, and con- 
sider as essential to the continuance of their power. He could 
have entertained no expectation of such an event, and there- 
fore, if he intended that his decrees should ever be abrogated 
in our favour, he must have relied upon the alternative---/^/ 
we are to cause our rights to he respected by the British. After 
ascertaining what he meant by new principles of blockade — it 
was incumbent upon our administration before they authorized 
any sanguine hopes with respect to the final triumph of com- 
merce, to investigate the latitude in which he might apply the 
terms i( causing our rights to be respected." In the act of the 
first of May to which he refers, there is no such language 
held, and none from which any particular intention or views 
on our part could be inferred, other than the mere revival of 
the non-intercourse. 

We scarcely need repeat, because it must be obvious to 
every understanding, that the revival of the non-intercourse 
merely, will not be, according to the meaning of Bonaparte, an 
accomplishment of the phrase " causing our rights to be re- 
cs spected." We must then resort to some other source than 
our act of May for an explanation of the ideas which he 
attaches to this language. --On this point, as well as on all the 
preceding,|we have his own express, reiterated declaration to 
satisfy us. We have been invariably told, that the use of force 
against Great Britain in case she does not acquiesce in the 
imperial code of maritime law, is the only mode in which 
we can cause our rights to be respected. These very terms 
are employed in reference to neutrals in the body of the 
Milan decree, and are there amplified in this very sense. 



/ 



France and the United Stales. 



67 



In the letter of Champagny to general Armstrong, dated 
from Milan, 24th November 1 807 — it is said " that the fede- 
" ral government cannot justly complain against the measures 
i( of France while the United States allow their vessels to be 
H visited by Erigland---to be dragged into her ports and turn- 
" ed from their destination ; while they do not oblige England 
" to respect their flag and the merchandise which it covers ; 
" while they permit that power to apply to them the absurd 
* e rules of blockade which it has setup," &Ci— " In violating 
4f the rights of all nations," continues this letter-—" Great 
" Britain has united them all by a common interest, and it is 
ii for them to have recourse to force against her she must 
ie be combated with her own arms :— -it is for them to forbid 
i( her the search of their vessels ; the taking away of their 
i( crews, and to declare themselves against (s'elever contre) 
6( the measures which wound their dignity and their indepen- 
6( dence. All the difficulties which have given rise to the 
<c complaints of the United States would be removed with ease 
i( if their government took, with the whole continent, the part 
(( of guaranteeing itself therefrom. England has introduced 
66 into the maritime law an entire disregard for the rights of 
S( nations. It is only in forcing her to a peace that it is pos- 
(e sible to recover them*" 

The tenor of all the documents and declarations of the im- 
perial government both as to the nature of neutral rights and 
to the manner of causing them to be respected is exactly the 
same. Moreover, before all the limitations attached to this 
pretended revocation can be well understood, it is necessary 
to determine what comprehension is meant to be given by 
Bonaparte to the term neutral rights. We have on this head, 
the most indisputable evidence, — in the passages which have 
just been quoted from the letter of November 24th, 1807* as 
well as in the formal communication made by Champagny to 
Armstrong of August 22d, 1809, on this very question. The 
neutral rights and the belligerent privileges which this coun- 
try is to cause to be respected, and fbr the, establishment of 
which the whole continent is said to have combined, are sum- 
marily these, — " that free ships make free goods; — that even 
<c enemy-merchant-vessels are to be respected; — that the un- 
" armed subjects of an enemy should not be made prisoners; — 
<e that no vessels of any description should be searched — that 
cc none but besieged towns should be blockaded/' &c. — And 
these are said to be " the invariable principles which have 
6S regulated and will regulate the conduct of his imperial ma- 
" jesty on the question of neutral rights." It is added also 



63 



Past and present Relations of 



" that it is for the United States by their firmness to bring on 
" these happy results. " 

We ask now, whether the emperor of France, after having 
given so many solemn pledges to the world of the only condi- 
tions upon which he would consent to rescind his decrees,— 
after so many uniform declarations couched in such emphatical 
and unequivocal language concerning the belligerent immuni- 
ties and neutral rights, for the establishment of which, as 
he has often asserted, he wages his own war and has leagued 
in it all the nations of the continent :— -we ask, whether it 
is probable that he will now abandon the whole of this 
ground ; — swerve from all his ostentatious promises \ — and 
receive from us such an interpretation of his late letter of 
Armstrong as will justly expose him to the scorn and derision 
of his enemies and to the mockery of all mankind ? 

What then is the result > It is that the Berlin and Milan 
decrees will remain suspended over our heads until we engage 
in actual hostilities against Great Britain, — an event which 
would render it a matter of indifference to this country 
whether a thousand such decrees were in existence. The 
supposition that the British will ever abandon their principles 
of blockade, or recognise the neutral rights to which Bona- 
parte refers, is too absurd and extravagant to require discus- 
sion or refutation. It is but too plain that the only alternative 
left to us, is a war with Great Britain. It is upon this hy- 
pothesis alone that we should be enabled to vanquish Bonaparte 
iiv the argument to which this question of their revocation 
may hereafter give rise. Should we now acknowledge and 
accept this alternative, we shall have, at least, the consolation 
of being able to accuse him, on solid grounds, of treachery and 
falsehood, if his decrees should be soon after restored to their 
wonted activity, and if the mendicant and fugitive trade which 
we might strive to enjoy with his dominions, were then op- 
pressed by the same anti-commercial system. But if either the 
salutury pusillanimity of our rulers* or the resuscitated judg- 
ment of the majority of this nation should recoil from the 
ruinous precipice of the war into which he is endeavouring to 
allure them, and we should yet persist to act upon the suppo- 
sition that his decrees are in fact revoked by this letter of 
Champagny, we will never be able to assert upon good grounds 
that we were deceived or betrayed. We will then, if we suf- 
fer at all, be the victims of something worse than credulity, — 
of our precipitate selfishness, — of our own unreflecting, blind 
cupidity. ) 



France and the United States, 



69 



The measure now under consideration was, we are satis- 
fied, long since concerted by this indefatigable enemy of the 
human race. In that article of his treaty with Holland which 
contains a stipulation with respect to American property, 
and in his own particular orders for the seizure of the cargoes 
of American vessels, there is a sort of reservation which refers 
to a new state of things that might exist between us. General 
Armstrong's residence in Paris was protracted for many 
weeks in consequence of intimations often repeated, that a 
change might take place in the dispositions of his imperial 
majesty ; — that events might happen which would render the 
presence of our minister both useful and convenient. Insinu- 
ations of this kind were thrown out long before information of 
our act of the first of May could have been conveyed to France. 
The plan of the delusive revocation was then maturing, and 
that act of congress was deemed a suitable pretext, when it 
was officially notified by general Armstrong. Measures of this 
kind are not suddenly adopted by the French government ; — 
and it must, we think, be sufficiently apparent, after all that 
has been said in the foregoing pages, that the act of the first 
of May was a cause wholly incommensurate with the effect 
which the French minister hypocritically ascribes to it. 

The assurances on this subject, extraneous to the letter 
of Cadore, which may have been given to our government 
will not, we are persuaded, be contradictory to the spirit of 
th&t letter; — and we can venture to predict that the policy 
of Bonaparte, in this instance, will be ultimately found to bear 
the same stamp of perfidy and rapine which is imprinted on all 
his other cabinet deliberations. — To divine all the motives by 
which he may have been actuated in this, or which may ac- 
tuate him in any other scheme of policy, would require a 
mind almost as fertile in the devices of mischief, and in the 
wiles of cunning as his own ; but we are not at a loss to under- 
stand some of the consequences which he anticipated from 
this measure. We discard, in limine, the supposition which 
has been somewhere indulged, that the whole is a matter of 
collusion between him and our administration, with the view 
of betraying this nation into a war with Great Britain. What- 
ever may be the opinions which we entertain with regard to 
their capacity, we cannot thmk them either so blind to their 
personal interests, or so indifferent to those of the state, as to 
co-operate designedly in a plan of which the accomplishment 
would lead to their destruction as certainly as to that of their 
country. 



70 



Past and present Relations of 



After exhausting the resources of violence against the 
United States, — -with the exception only of the imprisonment 
of all the American citizens who happened to he within his 
grasp, — and glutting his rapacity at the same time with the 
spoils of our property, Bonaparte discovered that the body of 
this nation was not to be awed or coerced into a war with 
Great Britain. The people of this country, although they did 
not feel or display the resentment which the most enormous 
outrages of every description were fitted to excite, were, — 
nevertheless, — so far influenced by them as to recoil rather 
than to advance in that common highway of ruin, — if we may 
so express ourselves, in speaking of an alliance with France, — 
which so many other nations have been forced to travel. 
Violence with respect to us, although it indulged the imme- 
diate desires of rapine, was not found to promote the views of 
ambition and hate ; and another course was therefore to be 
devised which, while it tended to gratify all the voracious and 
malignant passions at once, might, also, answer exigent pur- 
poses of general policy and domestic plunder. 

After full deliberation, — as we are well satisfied, — after 
a calculation of all possible consequences,— -after comparing 
them, and ascertaining their compatibility with his former de- 
clarations and with the anti-commercial system which he con- 
siders as one of the fundamental securities of his present and 
future power, Bonaparte resolved upon the revocation of the 
Berlin and Milan decrees in its present form, as the measure 
best adapted to promote the ends and interests of his des- 
potism. We cannot admit some of the conjectures which have 
been hazarded on the subject'of his motives ; such, for instance, 
as that he has been either prompted by humanity or urged by 
fear to attempt to mitigate the sufferings of his subjects. This 
reasoning argues but a very imperfect knowledge of the charac- 
ter of the individual, and of the genius of a military despotism 
supported by seven hundred thousand well appointed and well 
disciplined troops. His " mighty arch of empire" rests upon 
this foundation, — and the murmurs or even the struggles of 
civil life would be as ineffectual to shake it, as tears and 
groans to mollify the heart, or to alter the purpose of a tyrant 
to whose imagination and to whose eye scenes of blood and 
anguish are equally familiar, and who well knows that if they 
disappeared, his own power would not long survive. We 
need not, we trust, stop to refute another surmise bottomed 
upon the increased misery or disaffection of the nations of the 
continent who are not as yet nominally incorporated with 



France and the United States. 



71 



the French empire. The most extended operation of the pre- 
sent decree can by no possibility administer any substantial 
relief to them. Their ports are every day more and more in- 
dustriously closed, and there is in fact, no profession on the 
part of the French emperor of an intention to allow them a 
free trade. By making France the depot of all foreign com- 
merce (for such is the erroneous construction put by many on 
his present measures) he will not alleviate, but obviously in- 
cumber the galling yoke which he has riveted upon them, 

With respect to the relation which this pretended revo- 
cation bears to his domestic policy , it was meant, in the first 
place, as a fiscal regulation to relieve the immediate necessi- 
ties of his exchequer; and if its effects had ended there, — if it 
had been altogether momentary, — the profit of the measure 
would not have been inconsiderable. It was a policy conge- 
nial to the nature and useful to the temporary exigence of the 
French government, to hold forth a delusive and slender 
hope to its subjects of the amelioration of their condition, 
by the importations and the traffic of even a refuse of com- 
merce, as a cover or douceur, for the imposition of enormous 
duties not only upon the colonial or other produce which might 
thereafter be sold in France, but upon an immense quantity 
which was then selling and upon much that had heen sold. This 
stretch of despotism, without a parallel except in the history 
of the revolutionary governments of the same country, — was 
introduced with a palliative which, by placing the meteor 
of hope before the eyes of his subjects, somewhat diverted 
their attention from the oppressions to which it led, — and at 
the same time actually softened those oppressions, at the ex- 
pense of the foreign merchant, by causing the price of colonial 
produce to fall. It was sagaciously calculated that the imme- 
diate gain to the imperial exchequer would be great, and the 
odium of the fiscal expedient lessened, whatever might be 
the ulterior result of the pretended revocation ; — whether it 
was immediately after recalled, or whether its operation was 
wholly defeated by the opposition of the British. The im- 
mediate effects such as we shall proceed to describe them, 
will prove the accuracy of this reasoning. 

We have now before us a list printed under the authority 
of the French government, of the imperial sales made in 
the month of September, of confiscated American property. 
Our limits will not allow us to quote them at large ; but 
whoever will take the trouble of examining them, will find, 
by a comparison of the duties with the amount of sales, 
that the former average two hundred per cent, and more on 



72 



Past and present Relations of 



all articles of colonial produce. The article of cotton, for 
instance, sold for one hundred and eighty francs the cvvt. — 
The duties are put down at three hundred and thirty, which, 
together with extra charges for the service of the auctioneer, 
&c. made the whole sum of extraneous charges about four 
hundred francs. These duties were paid without delay to the 
receiver of the customs, by the purchaser. 

Our readers will remark, that the weight of the duties falls 
chiefly on the consumers. Their situation is not in any man- 
ner alleviated by this illusory revocation, as they continue to 
pay the same price as before, — and perhaps a greater,---for 
the commodities taxed. The foreign merchant can never 
afford to sell his cotton, his indigo, or his coffee, but at a rate 
■which, with the duties superadded, must render it unat- 
tainable to the great mass of the nation. The general con- 
sumption then of foreign commodities will increase but little, 
— importations although they should be at first exuberant 
must soon cease to be abundant ;--and the operations of trade 
will be scarcely less languid and certainly not more produc- 
tive than before. Should the Berlin and Milan decrees be im- 
mediately reanimated, the government will have reaped a con- 
siderable harvest of booty — while the merchant and the con- 
sumer, so far from having been favoured, will have been sorely 
aggrieved. 

If the necessities of the French exchequer require, and the 
supineness of the British or our own credulous cupidity alloiv 
that this new fraud and bubble of a wily and famished des- 
potism should continue for a little time, it is, — as we think we 
have demonstrably shown — so contrived that the spirit of com- 
merce can never revive under its operation, — that the move- 
ments of trade will be but little quickened, and the gains both 
of the foreign and of the French merchant, but inconsiderably 
if at all, increased. The treasury of Paris may " like a disor- 
ce dered spleen in the human body'' swell and fatten, but the 
impoverishment of the rest of the system must be the conse- 
quence. The sole drift of this new device of rapine, as a 
measure of internal policy and in its relation to the commercial 
and agricultural classes of France is,-— that the military chest 
may si suck the honey of their search." 

Some portion of the produce of the French soil and manu- 
factures may indeed be exported. This is contemplated by 
the French ruler; and to those at a distance who are ignorant 
of the fiscal system of the military cabinet, it may appear 
likely to mitigate the condition of the manufacturer and the 
farmer. But this, although the natural effect^ is not that which 



France and the United States. 



n 



will ensue, or which is contemplated by the alchymists of the 
Thuileries. It is calculated that the vent of the produce will 
afford scope for new taxes ; that it will furnish some additional 
means of discharging those which now crush to the earth all 
the industrious classes of the empire. There never has been 
an instance — and for the truth of this assertion we can our- 
selves vouch, and would appeal to every man who has had 
opportunities of personal observation, — of an alleviation af- 
forded by the French government to any of the laborious 
orders of civil life in France which has not been counter- 
balanced and defeated by regulations tending either to reple- 
nish the treasury at their expense, — to multiply the monu- 
ments of national vanity and the gratifications of idle luxury; 
or to swell the pomp, and minister to the ostentatious pride of 
the imperial family and favourites. 

We scarcely need remind our readers that if the proceeds 
of the immense property treacherously ravished from our 
merchants, should be even returned to them, the French 
treasury will have gained immensely by the seizure. There is 
no man so extravagantly credulous as to suppose that Bona- 
parte will relinquish more than the sums for which that pro- 
perty was sold. The duties of two hundred per cent, will be 
retained; and we leave our merchants to calculate the amount. 
They will have the satisfaction of knowing, if they ever re- 
gain any part of the proceeds of their stolen goods, — that they 
have been the occasion of enriching the imperial exchequer in 
double the value of their cargoes; that their coffee and cotton, 
if it had not been so officiously forestalled and distributed by 
their affectionate ally, and if his new decree had not interven- 
ed — would have yielded instead of two francs per pound, 
double or triple the sum. — The nature of this transaction 
throughout furnishes an additional reason for 1 believing that 
the decree was in petto, at the very time that the property was 
seized ; so that if our submissions to France were such as to 
render it necessary, — for more important objects, — that the 
property should be returned, it might, nevertheless, be ren- 
dered productive to the imperial consignee. 

The foreign policy , as it may be termed, of this pretended 
revocation, may be divined — in part at least — without much 
difficulty. We assume it as an undisputed point that the French 
emperor must have foreseen the tenor of the reply which the 
marquis Wellesley has given to the notification of Mr. Pink- 
ney on this subject. His imperial majesty knew well that the 
British orders in council would not be rescinded until his 
own decrees were known to be wholly inoperative and ex- 

K 



74 



Past and present Relations of 



tinct. It is absurd to suppose that he is so ignorant of the 
temper and policy of the British nation as to have imagined at 
any time that she would relinquish, for any consideration he 
could offer, the principles of blockade which he affects to 
reprobate as new and unlawful. If she lay prostrate at his, 
feet stripped of her power and her spirit---this is a condition 
which he might impose — but, however great his arrogance, it 
would not dictate even a proposition of this nature addressed 
directly to herself, at a time when her resources are unim- 
paired, and when it may be truly said that 

" Her hearts are strengthened and her glories rise*," 

He foresaw then distinctly that the orders in council would 
not be withdrawn " until trade was restored to its former 
<6 footing on the continent; "-— an event which it was his full 
determination never to permit. He however provided against 
the remote contingency of the revocation of these orders as 
far as it might obstruct his anti-commercial policy, by the im- 
position of enormous duties, the operation of which we have 
explained above, — and by annexing conditions altogether im- 
practicable, to his own repeal, so as to enable him to retract it 
whenever policy or passion might prompt him so to do, He 
will, it maybe relied upon, enter into no engagements, which 
might by any possibility lead to the general prosperity of 
trade, or to the resurrection of the commercial spirit on the 
continent of Europe. 

In the hypothesis of the abandonment of the orders in 
council, he was not embarrassed as to the course which 
he was to pursue in our regard. If we consented to trade 
with him upon the ignominious and unprofitable terms now 
offered to us, he would tolerate an intercourse as long as 
it might be convenient for him to replenish his exchequer in 
this way, or to accomplish any other temporary purpose. 
When the motive of convenience ceased to operate, or when 

* It would not require many years of nominal peace with her enemy to place 
England in an attitude materially different from that mentioned in the text. Man- 
kind might then have before their eyes a picture the very reverse of the one she 
now txhibits: 

" Her princes sunk ; 
•' Her high-built honour moulder'd to the d-ust ; 
" Unnerv'd her force ; her spirit vanish'd quite; , 
" With rapid wing her riches fled away; 
** Her unfrequented ports alone the sign 
u Of what she was ; her merchants scatter'd wide ; 
*j Her hollow shops shut up ; and in her streets, 
" Her fields, woods, markets, villages, and roads, 
" The cheerful voice of labour heard no more." 



France and the United Slates. 



views of general policy or impulses of private hate suggested 
an opposite system, he would then have but to declare that the 
conditions which he had annexed to his repeal (such for 
instance as the recognition by the British of neutral rights in 
his sense of the term), had not been fulfilled, and that conse- 
quently a renovated activity was to be given to his decrees. If 
it so happened that his ports were filled with American ship- 
ping at the time, — so much the better for the caisse d'amor- 
tissement to which they would fall a prey. 

Nay, we do not hesitate to aver that the prospect of a large 
booty to be so acquired might have been one of the leading in- 
ducements to the whole transaction. There is nothing in the 
character of the man, or in his previous conduct, which renders 
this conjecture either improbable or uncharitable. The gross 
hypocrisy displayed in his fulsome declaration of friendship 
towards a people whom he has so recently branded with every 
opprobrious epithet, and whom he so notoriously hates and 
despises, would alone justify the anticipation of any species of 
treachery however base or execrable, if we were not authoriz- 
ed to suppose him capable of every possible degree of guilt by 
the whole history of his life, comprising a series of crimes in 
comparison of which the voluminous catalogue of all former 
acts of perfidy and violence may be said to brighten to the 
moral sense and to shrink into a narrow compass. 

The calculations which, we have just ascribed to Bonaparte 
looked to a state of things merely possible. It is, as we have 
already suggested, our private and firm belief that he did not 
expect the revocation even of the orders in council. He relied 
upon his own measure merely as a fiscal device, and as an ex- 
periment upon the United States. It unites both characters. 
The experiment was of the kind to which we have alluded 
in the commencement of this discussion. Violence he found 
ineffectual to drive us into a war with Great Britain. He 
was frequently told that if one belligerent revoked her decrees, 
and the other did not follow her example, collisions would be 
inevitable between the latter and the United States. We were 
therefore to be duped by an illusive revocation, which if it 
failed to produce the intended effect with us, would still be 
a lucrative job for his treasury. To cajole and blind our ad- 
ministration the more completely, he could easily consent to 
give any verbal or other extraneous assurances of his good 
faith. Into this snare our executive has fallen, to the asto- 
nishment of every reflecting man in this country. The pre- 
sident of the United States in issuing his proclamation must 
have outstripped even the most sanguine expectations of Bona- 



76 



Past and present Relations of 



parte himself — as he has confounded and dismayed that por- 
tion of our community which sees in an alliance with France, 
a train of images as appalling as any that ever passed before 
the imagination of a poet *. 

We are utterly at a loss to imagine how our executive coulc 
have supposed himself authorized to issue his proclamation 
under all the circumstances of the case. The act of congress 
enjoins it upon him to take this step only when one of the 
belligerents has so revoked or modified her edicts as to cease 
to violate the neutral rights of this country. The revocation 
or modification so qualified was to be a condition precedent : 
the violation of neutral rights under edicts of any descrip- 
tion, whether issued before or after the act of congress, was ac- 
tuallv to have ceased. It was not upon mere assurances from 
any one of the belligerents that the condition prescribed by 
congress would be fulfilled, or in contemplation of & future 
event of this kind, that the president was empowered to act. 
It was not a conditional revocation^ prescribing terms to the 
other'belligerent which were never contemplated by congress 
and which they knew to be utterly unattainable, that could 
have come within their meaning. 

They must have alluded to, and intended to comprise within 
the purview of their act, not merely the foreign edicts existing 
on the first of May, but any other of the same character which 
might be issued in the interval between that period and the 
first of March : — such, for instance, as the Rambouillet de- 
cree, no less solemn and public, and still more violent than 
anv of the preceding. In short, the president of the United 
States was authorized to act only when he saw proofs of the 
fact that one of the belligerents had ceased bond fide to violate 
the neutral rights of this country by the operation of any 
general law, — and that our trade was no longer exposed to 
lawless edicts either in abeyance or in activity. Let the act 
of congress be consulted and it will be found that neither its 
text nor the spirit of the whole transaction will warrant any 
other construction than the foregoing. 

On the supposition that the revocation of the French em- 
peror was to have been absolute after the first of November, it 
was still the duty of the executive to wait until he saw that 
this revocation had actually taken place, and that the decrees 
of France were so repealed as to cease altogether to violate 



* Terriblles visu forms ; Letumque laborque 
Turn consanguiaeus Leti sopor, et mala mentis 
Gaudia, mortifer unique adverso in limine helium, 




France and the United States, 



77 



our neutral rights. It was not left to his discretion to enter 
into any compromise on the subject with either of the belli- 
gerents. — It was not optional with him to accede to such an 
agreement as this, for example, — that France would notify to 
the world the revocation of her decrees, to take place however 
on a distant day, provided the president of the United States 
would consent to issue his proclamation concurrently with that 
notification. — He possessed no authority to this effect under 
the act of congress. 

If he were then so restricted, what shall we say to his pro- 
clamation in the existing state of things,— notwithstanding the 
impracticable, and on our part unauthorized and unavowed, 
conditions which have been shown to be annexed to the revo- 
cation of the French emperor; — notwithstanding the notorious 
fact that our neutral rights are still violated and trampled upon 
under the auspices of the very decrees wh ; ch the president 
declares to be null and exanimate. — It is well known that in 
the course of the months of September and October, decrees 
were issued by the imperial cabinet, supplementary and auxi- 
liary to that of Rambouillet, — a decree which our adminis- 
tration considered as the ne plus ultra of French injustice and 
fraud, and on account of which they should now be the de- 
clared enemies of France. How could that decree be said to 
have been revoked when sales of American property were 
executed under it as late as the months which we have just 
cited ? As long as it continued to be executed, it was living 
and potent, and we have but to examine its text to be satis- 
fied that the sale, no less than the seizure., of American pro- 
perty was in execution of that decree. If this were not the 
case, and the sale were effected in consequence of another 
supervenient regulation of Bonaparte, under what encourage- 
ments is it that our executive has ventured to " exert a 
" vigour beyond the law," and to anticipate the period pre- 
sdribed by the act of congress for his proclamation ?— -The 
sales of Bayonne and Antwerp afford, indeed, a most extra- 
ordinary demonstration of a conciliatory spirit, and a most 
cheering augury of good faith in the future stages of this new 
career of friendship and indulgence ■!* 

* If we could indulge in any feelings on the subject of this proclamation but 
those of indignation and alarm, we should be disposed to entertain and to express 
some compassion for the embarrassment under which the president appears to have 
laboured in framing his proclamation. The phraseology is curious and ridiculous in 
the extreme. The date being the month of November, — we are told that " it has 
" been officially made known to this government that the edicts of France violating 
" the neutral commerce of the United States have been so revoked as ft)- cease . 



LOFC 



78 



Past and present Relations of 



It should be recollected that there are two parties inter- 
ested in this revocation ; — the United States and Great Bri- 
tain. — The proclamation of the president is in some degree 
addressed to the latter, and will be followed, no doubt, by an 
application for the repeal of her orders in council, and per- 
haps, of her principles of blockade as they are expounded by 
Bonaparte; and this demand will be grounded upon an 
allegation of the previous revocation of the French decrees. 
But can we expect that she will receive the interpretation 
w"hich our executive may choose to put upon the letter of the 
French minister, in contradiction to the plain meaning of the 
text ? — Will she consent to be hoodwinked by any vague, 
barren assurances of Bonaparte, and shut her eyes to facts 
which on all sides give the lie to those assurances? — Will she 
not ask us whether the French edicts of every description, on 
the subject of commerce, are indeed so repealed as to have 
ceased to violate neutral rights ? 

We mav indulge in what illusions we please, but it is 
something more than mere Quixotism in our administration 
to require from her a concurrence in their extravagant as- 
sumptions. However well this country may be satisfied — it 
will not^be enough for her, if Bonaparte should declare even 
in the most unequivocal language that his decrees are revoked, 
if the spirit of them be still visibly active and triumphant. 

She cannot mistake the truth of the case. Almost every 
French, and, indeed, every continental newspaper published 
since the date of the pretended revocation of the French 
decrees, teems with declarations emanating directly from the 
imperial throne, and announcing that the anti-commercial sys- 
tem is, and will be pursued with unabated vigour. We read in 
every French gazette, — and we have them of the most recent 
date, — that the emperor is fortifying daily the continental 
league for the exclusion of all commodities the growth of any 
British possession, — no matter by whom brought, or where 

" have effect on the first of the present month." And again it is proclaimed by 
the president ( on the second day of November, let it be noted,) " that the said 
M edicts of France have been so revoked as that they ceased on the first day of the 
" said month to violate the neutral commerce of the United States." Now in the 
name if God we ask, how our president could have been informed on the second 
day of November, that, on the day preceding " the edicts of France had ceased to 
" have effect?" This gross absurdity arose from the difficulty. of reconciling in any 
other way the proclamation with the terms or spirit of the act of congress. Our 
administration were conscious that they had no authority for this measure unless 
the edicts above mentioned had ceased to violate our commerce — a fact 
which could not, in the nature of things, be determined or known until tht 
revocation actually took effeqr. 



France and the United States, 



79 



purchased. We see his irresistible influence exerted every 
where on the continent to enforce a scheme of prohibition and 
confiscation exactly the same in substance as the scope of his 
Berlin and Milan decrees. If it be notorious, — if the fact 
be avowed by himself---that the nations both of the north 
and south of Europe nominally independent of him, are 
acting,— at his instigation and by his command, — on a plan 
utterly subversive of all neutral rights, are not their edicts 
his in fact, and does he not still continue " to violate neutral 
ce commerce ?" Are not the occupation of the ports of the 
North by his troops, and the exclusion from, or the oppression 
of neutral trade in them, by the power of the sword, as much 
a blockade, in fact, and as reprehensible in principle, as the 
investiture of those ports by British men of war ? 

If Great Britain, when called upon to rescind her orders, 
should look to France alone for a confirmation of the fact of 
the revocation of the French decrees, what will she find there ? 
Certainly not such a state of things as to give even a colour 
of plausibility to our demand. If the picture which we have 
exhibited be correct, she will hardly discover that the spirit 
of the Berlin and Milan decrees is extinct, or that they have 
been so revoked as to cease to violate neutral commerce, 
She must remark that all the previous restrictions and regu- 
lations on importation are still in force, and if she found us 
trading with France, notwithstanding these regulations and 
the operations of the new duties, and without having obtained 
restitution of all the property ravished from us by the Ram- 
bouillet decree, — she might be tempted to smile at our blus- 
tering pretensions to nice honour, and to rigid impartiality. 

There is another consideration which might affect the 
determination of a British minister in this business, and for 
which a liberal and generous mind could find some indulgence. 
It might appear to him— that Bonaparte submitted to relax 
his hostility to commerce with a view to the more easy ac- 
quisition of supplies for his armies in Spain, and in this way, 
to the acceleration of the complete conquest of that country, 
when he shall have obtained possession of the sea-ports. It 
might at the same time be imagined, that the French emperor 
in relaxing his decrees had also in prospect the more success- 
ful prosecution of his plans in South America, to the advance- 
ment of which a momentary reconciliation with the United 
States might be deemed necessary. If such were the persuasion 
of a British minister, we could hardly blame him for inter- 
posing the power of Britain to frustrate the accomplishment 
of these iniquitous schemes. If such should become our own 



80 



Vast and present Relations of 



persuasion, we could not, as the votaries of freedom and as a 
magnanimous people, for any temporary interest of gain, con- 
sent to lend our aid to rivet the galling chains of a savage, 
vindictive usurper upon a gallant nation, nor assist in extend- 
ing his sanguinary dominion over millions who are now ready 
to shake off the yoke of their old despotism, and to pursue our 
own example in raising temples to liberty, and consecrating 
the rights of man. 

In the proclamation of our executive there is not only an 
unwarrantable stretch of prerogative, but a most indecent 
precipitancy. What effect this premature alacrity to meet the 
wishes of Bonaparte may have been intended to produce upon 
the two belligerents we know not; — but of this we are firmly 
persuaded, that it will neither melt the grim despot of France 
into kindness, nor alarm the Briiish into submission. It can- 
not mitigate the contempt which the former must feel, both, 
for our credulity and our pliancy ; — nor lull the suspicions 
which have long prepossessed the latter, with respect to the 
sincerity of our neutral dispositions. If there be any man in 
this country who pampers his imagination with the hope that 
the British may now be either driven or wrangled into extraor- 
dinary concessions, — if there be any man who wishes to do 
justice to the motives by which they may be actuated in ad- 
hering inflexibly to their present system — let him look to th£ 
present state of Europe, and to the prospects of war in that 
quarter. 

In contemplating the continent of Europe we may apply 
to Bonaparte the phrase of the Latin poet, concerning the 
master of the Roman world, — 

Toto jam liber in or be 
Solus CiEsar erit.* 

He is now establishing his generals on the thrones of the 
North, and ere long there may not remain a single monarch 
in that vast dominion, whose crown will not be of his^ift ; — 
nor one atom of strength either physical or intellectual of 
which he will not enjoy the controul, and direct the appli- 
cation. When we call to mind the fell spirit by which this 
stupendous mass of power is animated: — when we advert to 
the evils which it has already produced, and of which we our- 
selves have witnessed a part, we find in this prospect <c of the 
" parallelism of the sword " something that overpowers and 

* Pliarsal. lib. ii. — Or rather, when -we take into view the new barbarism nov* 
settling upon that quarter, the verse of Euripides, 

Ta Botpficiowv yxp oSAa tolvtol, ?r\i;»£vof. 



France and the United States* 



81 



withers the imagination. We should lose all hope for the pre- 
servation of any of the true honours, or comforts, or embellish- 
ments of existence, if we did not discern in the midst of an 
ocean of confusion and of horrors, one solid rock braving the 
fury of the tempest and invulnerable to the assaults of the bi-1* 
lows. To this rock we look in part for our own safety, and 
therefore we would not, if it were left to our own option to 
decide, ourselves consent, — that one particle should be loosen- 
ed from its supposed foundation, — lest the whole concrete 
mass might give way. 

England may be conscious of her strength, but she must 
also be diffident of her security. Her statesmen, although 
they may have full assurance of the sufficiency of their re- 
sources, do feel that in this struggle they must not relax a 
nerve; that they must hazard no experiments. Every eye in 
England is now broad awake to the implacable spirit, and to 
the exterminating views of her enemy — Every fancy is roused 
by the daily accessions made to his power, and by the multi- 
plication of the perils to which she is exposed. In this state 
of things — when every measure of her foe is distrusted and 
dreaded as a new machination for her ruin; — when she ima- 
gines that she can be saved only by keeping every nerve in 
the most rigid tension, is it for us, whose battles she is really 
fighting no less than her own, to feel surprise or affect re- 
sentment, if she should refuse Jo relinquish what she con- 
siders, — no matter whether justly or erroneously,---as one of 
the elements of her strength and one of the pledges of her de- 
liverance? How can we expect that hi the midst of the vast 
interests and of the tremendous dangers which claim her at- 
tention, she is to enter into scholastic disputations and to 
write metaphysical theses upon abstract neutral rights : — to 
pause and weigh deliberately, as it were in a balance, her own 
great measures of defence against the interests of our rem- 
nant of trade :--to calculate so much positive advantage for the 
one, against so much contingent damage resulting to the other: 
---to sacrifice the first in case it should appear that the latter 
might be injured : — to hazard her own existence by filling 
the exchequer and gratifying the ambitious views of her foe, 
merely because it appeared probable, to our administration 
that the concurrence of the United States in these objects 
might induce the insolent despot to tolerate their commerce 
in his dominions ? 

We will now venture to dwell for a moment on the last 
paragraph of the letter of the French minister to general 

L 



S2 Past and present Relations of 

Armstrong. It is that which states that " the Emperor of 
" France loves the Americans," and delights in their pros- 
perity and aggrandizement *. Not much need be said on this 
point, as we think we have afforded, in the course of the pre- 
ceding- investigation, a superfluity of proof as to the real 
dispositions by which his Imperial Majesty is animated in our 
regard. There are few persons, we trust, in this country 
however bigoted in their admiration of the man, who can be 
the dupes of his awkward professions on this subject. There 
are as few, we trust, inclined to credit the incredible tale of 
his affection as there are to believe, what is at the same time 
asserted by his minister, that cc the Emperor has, ever since 
" the epoch of our independence " felt a pleasure in aggran- 
dizing the United States. 

If we reasoned only a priori, from a view of human nature 
itself, and from the invariable experience of mankind, we 
should be compelled to conclude that a military despot, 
habituated all his life to military law, and the most absolute 
monarch now in existence or perhaps ever known, must hate 
and despise all republican or democratical institutions. Such 
political systems as those of Great Britain and the United 
States are a constant reproach to a military despotism. They 
are equally objects of dread and detestation, because they 
operate as correctives, in some degree, to the habit and ex- 
ample of slaverv, and serve to keep alive the image and the 
desire of freedom even among the victims of oppression f. In 
this instance, however, we are not confined to general or ab- 
stract reasoning alone, but have this conviction forced upon 
us by facts of daily emergence, and of most irresistible evi- 
dence. The whole world has seen the Emperor of France 
waging an implacable war against the free governments of the 
continent of Europe; we all know that he has not left a vestige 
of republicanism within the range of his power. We have it 

* " S. M. aime les America-ins. Leur prosperity et leur commerce sont dans les 

" vues de sa politique. Dindependance de I'Amerique est un des principaux titres 

" de gloire de la France. Depuis cette cpoque, I'Empereur s'cst pla a agrandir les 

" Etats-Unisi et, dans toutes les circonstances, ce qui powra contrilucr d I'indt- 

" pendance, a la prosperity et a la liberte des Americaius, VEmptreur le regardera 

" comme conforme aux inttrels de son Empire.'" . , r ,, 

J r Letter of Lhampagny. 

t Demosthenes in declaiming to his countrymen against Philip, addresses them 
in this language. It is against our free constitution that his arms are principally 
" directed; nor in all his actions has he any thing more immediately in view than its 
" subversion. There is a sort of necessity for this. He knows full well that his 
" dominion can never be secure while you continue free. He sees in your freedom 

a spy upon the incidents of his fortune." 



France and the United States. 



from his own mouth that he despises us ; we have felt the ma- 
lignity of his hate in an unbroken series of unparelled out- 
rages and indignities. Whoever has been at Paris within the 
few years past and has enjoyed any opportunities of obser- 
vation, or any latitude of intercourse with the Parisian so- 
ciety, must have learned that the Ameriean government and 
people were held in the utmost scorn and aversion not only 
by the ruler of France, but by every functionary and retainer 
of his monstrous system of fraud and rapine. 

On the score of these feelings there is no disguise affected; 
they are not only distinctly seen, but openly avowed. When 
the late French charge des affaires to this country returned 
to France and pleaded in extenuation of certain offences im- 
puted to him, his endeavours to effect a good understanding 
betweeen us and his employers, he was told by the head of the 
foreign department; that such services connected with his 
mission to the United States, would be just as available with 
the Emperor, as if they had related to the Dey of Algiers* 
If there be any difference in sentiment with regard to the two 
powers, it is that his Algerine highness is much the less ob- 
noxious of the two. He is not of the same importance to the 
views of Bonaparte on England. He has not so materially 
contributed to thwart them by a tenacious fondness for com- 
merce, that bane and eye-sore of a military despot. The Dey 
has sent no gazettes to his dominions replete with accurate 
delineations of his character and unsparing animadversions on 
his conduct. The Dey has lost him no island of San Domingo 
— a circumstance to which Champagny alludes with much 
bitterness in the letter supposed to be spurious. It is well 
known in the circles which eddy about the throne of the 
Thuileries, that the emperor ascribes the failure of his at- 
tempts upon that island to our cupidity; — that he has often 
denounced vengeance against us on this account, and that this 
recollection still festers in his bosom. 

Necdum etiam causa; irarum seevique dolores 
Exciderant animo. 

These assurances of warm friendship from a determined 
enemy, and particularly from one of the character of Bona- 
parte, should, instead of inspiring confidence, excite the most 
lively alarms. The wretched and time-serving king of Prussia 
states in the manifesto which he published on the eve of the 
war which terminated in his ruin, that he had just then receiv- 
ed a letter from Bonaparte full of professions of esteem and 



84 



Past and present Relations of 



attachment. Who does not recollect the epistles^of the same 
affectionate ally to the imbecile monarchs of Spain imme- 
diately before he laid violent hands upon their persons, and 
commenced that ferocious war on their subjects which now 
traces, in characters of blood, the most awful lessons to us and 
to all mankind*? 

* We cannot resist the temptation of placing before our readers the who'e of 
the letter which Bonaparte addressed from Bayonne to Ferdinand before that 
unhappy prince fell into the hands of this perfidious enemy. The opinions which 
we have expressed in the text could have no more forcible illustration thau this 
important document. The best comment on the letter itself is to be found in the 
present situation of Ferdinand and in the actual condition of Spain. We have 
marked in italics the passages which place the character of the writer in the 
highest relief. 
" Brother, 

" I have received jour royal highness's letter. The inspection of your royal 
" father's papers must already have convinced you of the affection which I ever 
♦< bore him : Under the present circumstances you will aHow me to speak to 
" your highness with frankness and candour. I entertained a hope that; 

upon my arrival at Madrid, I might persuade n.y illustriom friend to make 
" some necessary reforms in his dominions, and in some degree to gratify the public 
" opinion. The Prince of Peace's dismission appeared to me requisite for his 
" happiness and that of the people. The events in the north have retarded my 
" journey. In the mean time the occurrences at Aranjuez have taken place. 
*« I do not set up for a judge of what has happened, nor of the conduct of the 
»« Prince of Peace ; but what I know is, that kings should never inure their 
*« subjects to shed blood, and to do themselves justice. I pray to God that your 
** royal highness may not one day experience the ill effects of this policy. It would 
«« not suit the interests of Spain that a prince who has married a princess of the 
«« royal family and who has so long governed the kingdom, should be persecuted, 
f He has no friends left; nor would your royal highness have any, if you should 
« one day be unfortunate. The people gladly seize the opportunities of making 
*' themselves amends for the homage which they pay to us. You cannot impeach 

the Prince of Peace, without impeaching the Queen and the King your 

father. This prosecution will nourish factious fury and hate, and the result 
" cannot but be fatal to the interests of your ciowru. Your royal highness has no 
*< tides to the throne but those which you derive from your mother. If the prosecution 
*' should dishonour her, your royal highness would thereby bar your own claim. 
*' Shut your ears to feeble and perfidious counsels ; you have no right to judge 
" the Prince of Peace. His crimes, if he were charged with any, ought to be 
•« buried in the rights of the throne. I have often expressed my wish that the 
" Prince of Peace might be dismissed : I f I have not been more urgent, it has 
** been owing to my friendship for King Charles, from whose weak partiality I 
" chose to turn my eyes. — Oh wretched humanity ! imbecility and error ; such is 
" our motto ! All this, however, may be reconciled : let the* Prince of Peace be 
t* banished from Spain, and I offer him an asylum in France. 

" With respect to the abdication of Charles IV., it has taken place at a time when 
" my armies occupied Spain ; and Europe and posterity might believe that I have 
f* sent so many troops for the sole purpose of driving my friend and ally from the 
" throne. 

" As a neighbouring sovereign, I am bound to inquire into what has taken 
" place, previous to my acknowledging this abdication. I declare it to your royal 
" highness; to all Spaniards, — to the whole world: if the abdication of King 
*' Charles be voluntary, if he hape not been driven to it by the insurrection of 
" Aranjuez, I shall not hesitate to admit it, and to acknowledge your royal highness 
f as king of Spain. I therefore wish to converse with your royal highness upon the. 



France and the United States. 



85 



But it is not with the absurdity or the falsehood of these 
benevolent professions, or with the immediate dangers which 
they portend, that we are most powerfully struck. We are 
most affected and disgusted with the base hypocrisy inherent 
in these proceedings,— -with that vile spirit of dissimulation 
which they display, and which dishonours human nature even 
more than all the wanton ravages of the sword. When we 
read such assertions as those whieh close this letter of the 
duke of Cadore, — -when we recollect the circumstances under 
which they are made, and consider that the individual from 
whom they come is the absolute master of a large portion of 
the globe, — we blush for the age in which we live, — -and feel 
ourselves still farther removed from the era of true civiliza- 
tion, than were the cotemporaries of feudal despotism. It is 
justly said by the author of the Travels of Anacharsis, that the 
truly barbarous age is not that in which there is the greatest fe- 
rocity of manners, but that in which there is the most hypo- 
crisy in sentiment. " Le siecle veritablement barbare n'est 
<e pas celui ou il y a le plus de ferocite dans les mceurs, mais 
" celui ou il y a le plus de faussete dans les sentimens." 

We cannot conclude this article, to which the importance 
of the subject has induced us to give an extension not 
contemplated by our general plan, without repelling an ac- 
cusation which will, in all likelihood, be preferred against 
us. We expect to be called the. blind apologists of Great 
Britain, and the zealots of a party. These epithets we dis- 
claim, because we know that in denouncing the views of 
France, and in reprobating the measures of our administration, 
we have but one object ; — and that is, — the good of this 
country — to the institutions of which we are as ardently at- 
tached as any of those who may think fit to asperse our mo- 
tives. We bear no enmity or malice to the men in power, — 

" subject. The caution, with which I have hitherto proceeded in these affairs 
*' ought to convince you of the support you will find in me, if factions, of any 
" description, ever disturb your reign. — When King Charles informed me of the 
** events of October last, I was deeply afflicted at them, and I flatter myself that 
*' I have contributed by my suggestions to the happy issue of the business of the 
u Escurial. Your royal highness should dread the consequences of popular com- 
" motions ; some of my scattered soldiers may be assassinated, but such excesses 
" could only bring ruin upon Spain. — Your royal highness knows all the recesses of 
44 my heart ; you may see that I am agitated by various ideas which require to be 
" fixed. You may be certain, that at all events, I will deal with you as I have 
41 done with your royal father : rely upon my wish to reconcile every thing, 
" and to find opportunities to give you. proofs of affection and high regard. 
44 — And so I pray God may Veep you, brother, under his holy and worthy 
44 protection." - 



86 



Past and present Relations of 



but we will protest against their ability to manage the affairs 
of this nation, and must express our fears for her safety and 
publish our warnings, 

" While such as ihese 
" Presume to lay their hand upon the ark 
" Of her magnificent and awful cause." 

Great Britain, we know, has heretofore often abused her 
power in her relations with the United States, and may, here- 
after, abuse it. At any other time, we should be as vehement 
in our opposition to her, and as indignant at her injustice as 
the most clamorous of her revilers are now. But we are over- 
powered by the sense of evils impending from another quarter 
more formidable and pressing than any which she is either 
able or disposed to inflict upon us. The love of our own secu- 
rity urges us to feel a lively sympathy for her in her present 
struggle; — to waive the discussion of the wrongs which she 
may have done us, — even to make allowances for those which 
may spring out of the line of conduct which she may think 
imposed upon her by the necessities of her situation. We 
should, ---in laying claim to the most enthusiastic glow of pa- 
triotism, — feel like impostors, if we hesitated to acknowledge 
our firm belief that every other political consideration is now 
secondary, — nay absolutely insignificant, when compared with 
the evils with which France menaces the whole civilized 
world. 

The proclamation of the president has excited a very serious 
alarm in our minds. We cannot suppose that it is the intention 
of our government to revive the non-intercourse law, with a 
view to its continuance for any length of time. This expedient 
has been already tested to the conviction of all parties. We, 
therefore, can find no solution for the language held by our 
administration on the subject of the new attitude which France 
affects to have assumed, but in the conjecture that they are at 
least haf inclined to risk the experiment of provoking a war 
with Great Britain. Against this ruinous experiment we shall 
exert our most strenuous efforts, careless of the epithets which 
may be applied to us; and we earnestly exhort the minority in 
congress to do the same.— -They should recollect that for- 
bearance in such a case is, in fact, treason to the country; — 
t hat the most animated opposition is not faction, but sound 
patriotism. 

(( Whenever,'* says Bolingbroke, " any scheme ruinous to 
iC the general interest or>a nation is pursued, the best service 
that can be done to such a nation, is to commence an early 



France and the United States, 



u and vigorous opposition. The event will always show that 
" those who thus act are the best patriots, however they may 
" be stigmatized with odious names. If the opposition begins 
" late, or be carried on more faintly than the exigency re- 
" quires, the evil will grow until it becomes too inveterate for 
" the ordinary methods of cure. The most plausible objection 
" to such proceedings, by which well-meaning men are fre- 
ec quently made the bubbles of those who have the worst de- 
" signs, arises from a false notion of moderation. Truepoliti- 
" cal moderation consists in not opposing the measures of 
ce government, except when great and national interests are 
" at stake ; and when that is the case, in opposing them with 
es such a degree of warmth as is adequate to the nature of the 
" evil. To oppose things which are not blame-worthy, or 
S( which are of no material consequence to the national in- 
ec terest, with such violence as may disorder the harmony of 
<c government,— is certainly faction ; but it is likewise faction, 
" and faction of the worst kind, either not to oppose at all, or 
i: not to oppose in earnest when points of the greatest impor- 
u tance to th* nation are concerned/ 9 



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